Background ¿ BACKGROUND The direct environmental impact derived from retail trade, as a sector is relatively small compared to i.e. production or private consumption. It is, however, important in the life cycle of most products. Eco-labelling of retail trade as a service enables the retail trade to comply with the private consumers growing demand for sustainable products. Eco-labelling is a market-based instrument, which primarily seeks to stimulate the supply and demand of products and/or services with a reduced environmental impact. Eco-labelling has a clear objective to encourage the industry to market greener and certified products. A step further to ensure environmental sustainability is to eco-label the retail trade. Eco-labelling of retail trade chains is complementary to the product-oriented eco-labelling mainly because it promotes sales of eco-labelled products through active marketing but also because it guarantees that not only the products but also the services attached are marked by an eco-label. Objectives The project aims at improving and adjusting existing environmental assessment methods and ecolabelling schemes in order to elaborate concise instruments for the reduction of environmental impact in retail trade and hence derived private consumption. The project will develop an environmental assessment methods based on earlier and existing experiences. The environmental assessment method will first be tested in five retail stores in Denmark. Based on results from this test the method will be adjusted. The adjusted method will then be tested in 25 retail stores. The feasibility of the method will be evaluated. Finally, a voluntary eco-labelling scheme will be developed and the achieved results disseminated. Results The project has succeeded in delivering the results foreseen in the application, an environmental assessment method for retail trade based on criteria including selection of eco-labelled products available in the stores as well as the environmental impact from energy and heat consumption, waste handling etc and a voluntary Eco-labelling scheme, including a set of formal rules for entering the scheme. The method has been tested through application on sample of Danish retail shops, e.g. members of the partner chains Silvan and Panduro. By the end of the project the tools for eco-labelling are available for use (downloadable at the projecthome-page http://www.ecotrade.dk/engelsk/default.htm), however there are no shops using the scheme, the partner Panduro ceased using the scheme by the end of the project.