Think new, think sustainable!
- a convenience goods chain for the future

Summary of a report from the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council's dialogue "Future trade"

The report presents the vision, the overall goals and the strategic action areas that have been developed by the dialogue group "Future trade", with a view towards sustainable trade in convenience goods.

The document has been compiled in a dialogue between 16 companies and the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council. This dialogue has included companies from the food processing industry, the transport industry, the retail trade and the IT sector. The purpose has been to focus on environmental aspects in the development of future trade patterns and to support and influence the trend towards sustainable trade in convenience goods.

The dialogue project "Future trade" has provided opportunities for participating companies and the Environmental Advisory Council to jointly discuss a vision for the convenience goods chain with a 25-year horizon. The vision presented in the document is judged to be a reasonably probable and desirable picture of the situation in 2025. It is not a forecast. The vision has served as a point of departure for formulating goals, a strategy and proposals for concrete measures.

Based on the vision and an assessment of environmental impact in the food processing chain, we have chosen to deal with three themes in the dialogue: logistics, e-commerce and the content and production of goods. Based on these three themes and the vision, the group has then chosen to develop a number of overall goals.

The vision and several of the overall goals have a 25-year horizon. Concrete measures are needed to achieve these goals. Certain measures must be implemented in the short term, while others should be seen in a longer perspective. We have devised a strategy with five strategic action areas. In prioritizing the five action areas, an important principle has been that they should be able to serve as a platform for concrete work in the companies.

The five action areas entail:

	Collaboration between industries and transport modes on the entire convenience goods chain from an efficiency and environmental perspective.
	Development, purchasing and introduction of new technology.
	Research and development for a sustainable convenience goods chain.
	Sustainable development permeates the whole company.
	Increased environmental compatibility of products and visualized environmental impact.