Intro: Sweden’s global shopping innovator

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Klarna has changed the way the world shops. Launched in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden, the company now helps 150 million consumers save time, money, and worry along each step of their shopping journey. Now, it’s doubling down on its efforts to make shopping more sustainable. Klarna has tapped Good On You to power its marquee Conscious Collections, curated guides that spotlight brands highly rated for their impacts on people, planet, and animals.

Here’s how Klarna leverages Good On You’s rating system and tech to launch new features in the Klarna App with lightning speed—and help millions of consciously minded shoppers make more informed choices.

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Opportunity: growing % of conscious consumers

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Consumers care deeply about sustainability

Klarna conducts deep consumer research to understand shopping habits and what consumers care about. One central theme the data has shown: sustainability is top of mind for a large and growing share of the population. One out of three consumers considers it important that brands act in environmentally sustainable ways, based on Klarna’s international survey. And these consumers care deeply, with more than 70% indicating sustainable materials, fair labour conditions in the supply chain, and brand action on climate change are top issues.

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‍Engaging shoppers with credible insights

The opportunity seemed clear. But it posed a big question: “How do we bring engaging sustainability information to the consumer? That’s the challenging and exciting part,” explains Salah Said, Klarna’s head of sustainability. “Currently, there’s no standardisation in terms of what makes a brand more sustainable or not. That's why we were looking for an independent and thorough expert that provides reliable data.” This is where Good On You comes into the picture.

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Solution: the turn-key tech stack for sustainability

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Ratings tech to move fast and iterate

Before partnering with Good On You, Salah and his colleagues extensively researched solutions with several criteria top of mind—an independent methodology and the ability to launch with speed. Good On You was one solution that delivered on both, he says. “Quite frankly, there are not many brand rating systems that display metrics at this level in the fashion industry.”

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“The only rating system I hear people talk about is Good On You. It’s already trusted by consumers and that’s very important.”

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A credible methodology consumers trust

One thing that sold Klarna on Good On You is the methodology’s rigour. “We believe the methodology and data is credible, and we trust the ratings process,” explains Alexandra Colac, Klarna’s lead on sustainability and business development. But equally important is the reputation Good On You has built with millions of consumers around the world. “The only rating system I hear people talk about is Good On You,” she says. “It’s already trusted by consumers and that’s very important. Everyone can understand it.”

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“We had several ideas about doing it ourselves but it’s hard to assess brands without a lot of expertise in that space. Ultimately, we wanted credible, external validation. And Good On You made that simple.” —Salah Said, Head of Sustainability at Klarna

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Results: resonated with users right away

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Swift proof of concept

Klarna moved fast to validate its initial concept, launching the first Conscious Collections in the United States, Sweden, and Germany in February 2022 with an initial run planned until April. “We saw it really resonated with consumers right from the start, with a lot of clicks and engagement,” Salah says. Brand partners also reached out with positive feedback and more began expressing interest. “It was super clear to us that we wanted to pursue this, so we extended our partnership beyond a proof of concept to make it a long-term thing.”

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Expanding Conscious features

“Our vision long-term is to become the number one shopping destination that’s trusted by consumers and merchants for sustainability,” Alexandra explains. “We began doing that by displaying data to consumers in the Conscious Collections, but that’s just the start.” Currently, Klarna highlights brands rated “Good” and “Great”, while also displaying specific ratings on people, planet, and animals. By collaborating across teams internally, Klarna is building out a roadmap to bring sustainability insights to consumers in new and interactive ways.

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“A lot of engagement from consumers”

After the positive engagement data, partner feedback, and press on the initial launch, Klarna began scaling to more regions in the following months. Conscious Collections are now live in 18 national markets, the majority of the countries Klarna operates in. “We’ve seen a lot of engagement from consumers,” Salah notes. Eight months after launching, the collections in all markets saw 2.6m monthly impressions in December 2022 alone—which is truly, well, impressive.

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