Eco-Labels: How They Skyrocket Sales And Build Trust — Laurent Bocahut | Why The Product Environmental Footprint Matters, Why Lifecycle Assessment Is Key For Sustainability, What Industries Benefit From Eco-labels, How brands start sustainability (#378)

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In this episode of the Ecommerce Coffee Break, host Claus Lauter sits down with Laurent Bocahut, CEO and Co-Founder of PEFtrust.com, to discuss the sustainability shift in ecommerce and how eco-labelling is shifting e-shoppers’ fashion choices.

Laurent, an environmental engineer, shares groundbreaking insights into how brands can measure and reduce their environmental footprint through data-driven automation. 

Discover how eco-labeling is changing consumer behavior, boosting website traffic, and becoming a critical strategy for modern e-commerce businesses.


Topics discussed in this episode: 

• What is Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and why does it matter. 
• How do eco-labels boost conversions and sales. 
• Why is lifecycle assessment key for sustainability. 
• How can brands automate sustainability data tracking. 
• Which industries benefit most from eco-labels. 
• How does publishing eco-scores impact traffic. 
• Why do natural fibers have a high environmental cost. 
• How can brands integrate eco-scores into Shopify. 
• What regulations are shaping sustainability in the EU. 
• How should brands start their sustainability journey. 

Links & Resources 

Website: https://peftrust.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-bocahut/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peftrust/ 

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/bdf5ww3y 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey there, welcome to the eCommerce Coffee Break. I'm your host Claus Lauter and you're listening to the podcast that helps you become a smarter online seller. In today's episode we talk about how eco labels are changing the way people shop online for products. Joining me on the show is Laurent Bocahut,CEO and [00:00:20] Co-Founder at peftrust.com.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. In today's episode, we will talk about how eco labels are changing the way people shop online for products and how you can measure and reduce the environmental footprint of your products through data driven automation. Now that's a [00:00:40] mouthful, but everyone obviously is interested in becoming a more sustainable in a run environmental friendly brand out there and we will dive into this.

Topic today. Joining me today is Laurent Bocahut. He's the CEO and co founder of peftrust.Com. Laurent is an environmental engineer passionate about sustainability and consumer [00:01:00] goods. He launched Peftrust in 2021 to provide brands with accurate automated impact measurements. Since then, his team has grown rapidly, partnering with major brands worldwide to make sustainability more accessible and actionable.

So let's welcome him to the show. Hi Laurent, how are you today? Hi Claus, very well. Thank you. Thanks for having me here today. [00:01:20] For our listeners who might be new to the concept, can you break down what product environment footprint is and what does it stand for? Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's actually a method of calculating the environmental footprint of a product.

That means we're all used to carbon [00:01:40] footprint, but it's not only carbon. You also have water, um, biodiversity, uh, chemical impacts associated with manufacturing a product. So taking the path of a product, the product environmental footprint, that just means accounting for every impact on the [00:02:00] environment from its birth to, to its grave.

Now, consumers nowadays are very conscious about making the right decision to buy products. You were mentioning that there is a life cycle to it. Um, what does that imply and how does that work? So, yeah, the notion of life cycle [00:02:20] is, uh, associated with the life of the product. Um, I was just mentioning the birth cradle to grave.

That's how we call it. So what we do, basically, we. Using a method that's called the life cycle assessment, we use this method, the scientific method to calculate the environmental [00:02:40] footprint of the product over this whole life cycle. So we account for raw materials, we account for transportation, we account for transformation, distribution, end of life of the product at each of these steps.

Some impacts are emitted to the environment [00:03:00] and we take the sum of all these impacts to get an overall score, basically an overall cost, which represents the cost of this, the environmental cost of this product. Now, that's very interesting because. I thought that a, um, a producer or somebody who develops a [00:03:20] product has all this information.

And I know it's, it's so important because there's a lot of regulations bound to that. Talk me through it. How does that work? Yeah, absolutely. You would think that, um, brands or, uh, manufacturers, they have this information, but it's actually very challenging because, um, there's a, there's a scientific [00:03:40] challenge to it.

First of all, it's not. Easy to calculate at scale, a footprint for any kind of products or SKUs. And there's also a data change to it because if you want to measure, assess the environmental footprint of your shirt or of your pair of jeans or, [00:04:00] or of a, of a cell phone or whatever. You need to first know what has gone into producing this product.

What has gone into producing this shirt? Where, which material is it? Cotton? Is it silk? Is it a wool? Where was it made? Uh, is it [00:04:20] knitted or is it a woven? Uh, how was it transported by plane, by barge, by rail, et cetera. So there's a, yeah, there's a, there's a complexity to that. And, Our job is to make this complexity, uh, manageable at scale for, for the brands.

Okay. [00:04:40] Now complexity obviously is very difficult to sell on a product landing page of a, of a store. So I think you're sort of being a translator, let's put it that way. How do you translate this very complex information into something that is easy to digest for a customer? Yeah, absolutely. [00:05:00] It's that's the whole point, not, not displaying this complexity to the customer and and showing something simple, readily understandable, like a, a, an A to E, a green to red, uh, environmental score.

That's, that's the, the. Bread and butter. So how do [00:05:20] we do that? Uh, basically, our job is a little bit comparable to an accountant, but instead of counting cost, we're counting, uh, environmental cost. So when we work with a brand, for example, we, we have this large, uh, retail client in apparel in France. Um, [00:05:40] we plug our software onto their apparel store.

Basically on the backend of our e commerce, let's put it that way. We receive, they send us some data, uh, product, uh, volumes, SKUs, composition, uh, stuff like that. We put that into our calculation [00:06:00] engine and what comes out is a score, uh, a number that is the environmental cost, uh, the row. Data basically, and we compare that to a reference to come up with a ABCDE and that's what they in turn [00:06:20] publish to the consumer on their website when that's the goal they are looking for.

Now I can imagine that this has a positive impact on conversion rates. People see that the product is environmental friendly. Do we have any numbers of that? What kind of impact that has? Yeah, absolutely. We [00:06:40] have, we're working with, um, with a brand that is called Lego pad. They're doing, um, winter sports equipment, and they've been doing that for years now.

And when they started in 2023, they used a plugin to, to connect, um, Our system with their Shopify portal [00:07:00] and, uh, publish, uh, scores in real time since then, uh, and they've seen a 30 percent increase in traffic on their, um, on their, on their website. So yes, it's sizable and, uh, we're really starting to see consumer behavior shifting, uh, thanks to these, [00:07:20] uh, environmental signals.

I can imagine. I mean, specifically what is called fast fashion has a very bad reputation when it comes to environmental factors. Are there any industries and just just mentioned the sport industry? Are there any industries beside of apparel and fashion where this is a very strong point for making more sales?

[00:07:40] Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine immediately think of the the home equipment and furniture vertical and we just yesterday signed a new Customer, a large customer, uh, also in France, and, um, they're doing it just for that, they have this policy [00:08:00] of, um, showcasing to the customer, to the end consumer, the efforts we are doing in eco designing their products.

So using this kind of environmental score, the scientific, uh, scores, this. makes the claim more objective, more, you know, it takes [00:08:20] greenwashing away from the equation. As long as we do our job properly. And as long as they do their job properly, which I believe is the case that makes things more data driven and objective.

And that's what the consumer is ultimately looking for. I want to find out a little bit more the data driven background of [00:08:40] that. I can imagine that, um, brands that have a lot of SKUs, a lot of products in there, um, it's very complicated to get all the data together. Talk me through the process on how you capture the data and how it gets processed.

Yeah. Typically our customers, we have 10, 000, 20, 000 SKUs, sometimes [00:09:00] only 2000, but we've a large variety, uh, of. Purchase orders and complex supply chains behind that. So it can be a little bit scary at first, but we have developed this approach over the years where we really start with only the bare minimum data that we need to come up with a [00:09:20] Let's say an average, um, an approximate score.

And for that, you basically only need the weight of your product and the composition. So if you know that your sneakers, they wait, uh, let's say 300 grams and, uh, they're comprised of, let's say 50 percent leather plus, um, [00:09:40] uh, 50 percent polyester with that, you can already start and get a first rough assessment of your product.

That's not for. Conducting any claim, not for doing a co design. That's just the bare minimum for getting you started. Once you have that under control, then you [00:10:00] can start enriching this data that you send into path trust, um, typically connecting, um, supply chain management solution to our API or a traceability solution once you have done that with your ERP.

So that's. That's the story behind that you start with bare minimum. [00:10:20] And then, uh, six months later, you add maybe the location of your tier one supplier, then, uh, you add maybe the main process of manufacturing and along doing that, you see the precision of your score, uh, getting higher and higher. That's because we give, of course, the [00:10:40] result of the environmental cost, but we give along with that, the.

Precision score, basically the score of your score. Very interesting. I can imagine other cases that a brand comes to you, they get their ECO score and it turns out very badly. Is there any kind of relationship that [00:11:00] actually you can get better in your business depending on the results that you provide?

Yeah, sure. All this is very counterintuitive, and that's why it's so important to have the, the scientific methodology when you do that. For example, we, um, I know that I'm going to, to maybe [00:11:20] surprise some of your auditors, uh, or maybe upset some of, some of them, but, um, Natural fibers, if you're dealing with animal fibers, like wool, like leather, these have a heavy cost on the environment because of the animal that has been, you know, [00:11:40] put to life before getting these, these raw materials.

So that's why when brands are working with animal raw materials, then. That's the main point of focus that they should be, uh, looking at before thinking of transportation or thinking of, uh, you know, fine tuning the, the distribution [00:12:00] mode or the, or changing the manufacturer. Uh, most of the, of the footprint is, is within the raw materials.

So that leads us to how can we substitute this material with maybe another kind of lever or recycled wool, et cetera, et cetera. And we work with. [00:12:20] Suppliers to help brands get these better options. That's when we work with animal sourced raw materials. On the other side, when you work with synthetic, I'm not saying synthetic is great.

It has its downsides, definitely. But when you work with synthetic, usually a large portion, a large activable [00:12:40] portion of the footprint is within the process, manufacturing process. And, uh, that's where it comes interesting to me. Go down to the factory level and try to, you know, tweaks, uh, things, uh, at this level.

Stay Forever Do you think that ecolabels will become a standard for [00:13:00] fashion brands, lifestyle brands overall? And, um, do you also think that from the governmental side, from the EU and whatsoever, there will be more rules and regulations around that? Definitely. Definitely. It's taking time, but, uh, we've been steadily observing, um, uh, advancing [00:13:20] regulation, uh, into this topic.

I want to be careful with regulation. I'm not strong advocates of adding more regulation, uh, to the system, which is already quite, you know, quite well regulated or enough regulated in, in, in Europe. It's just that. Europe is pushing something which I really like. It's called the PEF product [00:13:40] environmental footprint methodology.

And it's really the first time when all EU 27 countries, they have the same methodology, the same, um, guidelines. To measure, uh, their products, uh, footprint. So that makes things standardized and comparable. That's what makes [00:14:00] it possible for solutions like us to actually measure and compare, uh, a product to a benchmark, which is ultimately what our customers and the consumer wants.

So definitely on the European level, this is something that is getting finalized as we speak for Apple and footwear, but [00:14:20] also for batteries, for dairies, cosmetics, et cetera, for a large portion of our consumer goods. And I can. mentioned a particular case, which is the French context in France. There is a strong push for [00:14:40] consumer labeling.

So actually the French government is passing, as we speak, a decree to make consumer labeling, not mandatory but, uh, strongly encouraged. Let's put it that way. So, um, we should start seeing more and more brands labeling their products, let's say [00:15:00] in the, in, within this summer. Stay Forever No, I think it's important to have a, uh, a standard, even a European standard so that you can really know how environmental friendly the product is that you're going to buy.

So what would be your advice for businesses starting with their sustainability journey? What would be the first step for them? [00:15:20] The first step is to, to get going, basically to put up a team and, and get going. It's something that, uh, it's a revolution that is underway. And let's say I would think of two key success factors.

The first one is having somebody, one or two or three persons, depending on your size, but at least [00:15:40] one person within the organization that is in charge of this product ESG thing. And this person, it must be somebody central in the organization that has ties with the IT, that has ties with the product department, and that also has ties with the, with the finance [00:16:00] and top management.

So it's a key position to get things started. And once you have that, the second thing is to start having your data in order, you know, having, let's say, Product weights and composition somewhere in your system. And [00:16:20] from there you can extract it, export it. Uh, that's, that's really the, the key, the key to start with.

Now you mentioned that, um, some of your clients are running Shopify stores. Um, how do you help with this whole setup? What's the onboarding process for a new customer for a new brand? [00:16:40] So in our solution, we, we have this, um, data loader thing. Uh, we call that an ETL extract transform load. Basically that's where you dump your unformatted data, uh, and our engine, uh, will [00:17:00] do the job to, let's say.

Let's imagine, let's take an example. If you source, uh, cotton from Egypt and you call that uh, cotton Egypt uh, in our system, it's called, uh, cotton underscore Egypt. So this little uh, web app is doing this mapping transcription [00:17:20] so that Your system and our system can communicate together. So once that's done, uh, data can seamlessly flow from your system to ours.

We do the calculation. We send the score back and we send also these little widgets. Uh, which you can customize to, um, [00:17:40] your look and feel and directly embed that into your Shopify or any other, uh, CMS as you, as you desire, or this can also take the form of an API call. If you want to, you know, really, um, make it, uh, look as you desire.[00:18:00] 

How long does it usually take to get up and running? It depends on the maturity of this, um, all, you know, uh, sustainability, product sustainability, uh, thing. But, um, let's say it's very challenging to do it in less than [00:18:20] six months. Basically, if you start from, from scratch, uh, you would need at least six to six months to two a year or so to get going.

Okay. No, I think it's, it's, it's a crucial decision for every brand to make, um, to be on, on, on that bandwagon specifically on the long run. [00:18:40] And as you said, there can be conversion rates and traffic increase rates of 30%. I mean, that's done a good decision for, for the future. Who's your perfect customer?

Yeah. Well, I think the perfect customer is the one who has understood that, um, we're going there any, any way, [00:19:00] uh, this is something that's coming. And, um, I just would like to touch upon this, this example of, um, the story, uh, the study by, um, an Irish. Um, researcher, which published recently, and it shows that, you know, when you publish, um, when you grade [00:19:20] products with an eco label, let's say an A to E eco label, there's a massive shift of consumers towards the A's or B's.

So pretty soon. We all know that we all experienced this into our supermarket when we, when we shop for food. Um, you know, when you have to choose [00:19:40] between a non labeled product and a labeled product, first you pick the label one, either A or E. It doesn't matter, but you pick the one that has a label on it.

And now if you have to choice between two label product, you will usually try to go for an A or B and that's the, that's the same, but it's coming with, um, [00:20:00] with April and, and other kinds of consumer goods. I think we, we will go there and, um, yeah, the ideal consumer is the one, uh, who has a team in place to address that.

I think having you on the side as a partner in your brand, in your business and helping with this process is so valuable, [00:20:20] because I think the complexity in the background is just too much to dive in as a brand itself. So having somebody with the expertise on the side is excellent. How does your pricing structure work?

We have three plans, basically one for SMEs, one for mid size brands and [00:20:40] one for large organizations. We can start in the range of, let's say, 600 euro per month. That gives you the The basic calculation for a couple of dozens of products. And then of course it goes higher with thousands or tens of thousands of SKUs.[00:21:00] 

And there we go into more, um, Uh, more elaborate that, um, crunchy tools and also more advanced features. But yeah, that's the bulk of it, these three plans. And then this gives you access to calculations and compliance. And then on top of that, we offer, uh, eco [00:21:20] design capacities and also corporate footprinting, um, consolidation capacities.

These are for brands who want not only a score, but also. Improve the score and then consolidate this course from product up to the organization level. [00:21:40] I can imagine that it's pretty much in every business. There's room for improvement. So I think that's something I would look into before we come to the end of our coffee break today.

Is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet? You know, I've been doing, I've been doing what we do at path trust with our team since, uh, three years now, and I've never [00:22:00] been so optimistic for the, for the future of our planet, basically, because You know, uh, all the, all the brands, all the suppliers, all the retailers that we speak to, they all want to do better.

They all want to, uh, they all commit to a carbon [00:22:20] reduction trajectory. What's missing is just doing that at scale and faster. And I think for that, we need technology and, uh, PEF Trust is a part of that. So I'm very enthusiastic about, uh, the way I'm seeing the industry evolve. Whether, uh, we're speaking small brands, whether we're speaking large [00:22:40] brands and even the fast fashion.

I mean, uh, I know they have bad press, but, um, there are brands out there that are really doing, uh, uh, something. Of course, it's not always black and white, but, um, I would like to share this optimism. That's my key takeaway. [00:23:00] Okay. It makes me very happy that there is some positive movement within this whole industry.

Where can people go and find out more about you guys? So the best is to go to our website, heftrust. com or to our LinkedIn corporate page. Okay. I will put the links in the show notes and you just want to click away. Thanks so much for giving us an insight in [00:23:20] sustainability and eco labels and everything that comes with it.

I think people should reach out to you and learn more about it. And I think it's a good decision going forward in the future for every brand to be part of it. Thanks so much for your time today. Thank you, Claus. Thank you, everyone.