French Competition Authority Provides Guidance On Carbon Footprint Data Sharing Platform

On October 23, 2025, the French Competition Authority (FCA) issued an informal guidance on the compatibility with competition law of a proposed platform¹ designed to collect suppliers' carbon footprint data and share it with retailers of their products. By creating a platform that allows for the collection of and access to this information, the initiative is intended to support sustainability efforts across the value chain.

The FCA issuing informal guidance is consistent with the growing interest in collaborative sustainability projects within the EU. The European Commission's Horizontal Guidelines² provides a helpful framework for the assessment of sustainability agreements. The French guidance adds useful insights into the antitrust boundaries when the exchange of sensitive data is involved.

Background of the Collaboration

Two professional retail organizations (in the food sector) asked the FCA for informal guidance on the creation of a platform for collecting and sharing data on suppliers' carbon footprints in the French retail sector. The proposed platform had two main objectives:

1. Facilitate CO₂ emissions reporting by suppliers to distributors (rather the dealing with requests from multiple retailers, suppliers can use the platform for centralized reporting).
2. Strengthen incentives for suppliers to decarbonize (as retailers may favor suppliers who take such initiatives), enabling the entire value chain to reduce emissions.

While the FCA acknowledged the benefits of the initiative, it also emphasized the need to avoid anti-competitive risks, particularly in relation to information exchange and market access.

Why Does Competition Law Matter Here?

Sustainability collaborations often involve competitors sharing data or even coordinating actions, which can raise concerns under Article 101 TFEU and national competition rules. The FCA recognized that the carbon footprint of products is increasingly being taken into account in the markets, and it is gradually becoming a competitive factor: companies differentiate themselves and their products or services on the basis of these aspects, and customers take them into account in their purchasing decisions.

Here, however, the FCA found that no competition concerns arise from the creation of a collective database, notably between retailers, because:

• There will be no exchange of sensitive information between competitors (retailers will have access to a dashboard showing their own suppliers' data and will be able to export that data for their own needs, but suppliers cannot see each other's data).
• The platform is open, voluntary, and non-exclusive.
• Retailers have not committed to certain collective commercial behavior (dereferencing, collective boycott of suppliers).
• There is no ranking of suppliers according to their carbon footprint.

Key Observations of the FCA

The FCA highlighted four antitrust risks, mainly in relation to suppliers:

1. To ensure a level-playing field, participation in the platform must remain open and fair, particularly for smaller suppliers. Fees should be reasonable and transparent, and data requirements must be objective and proportionate, avoiding unnecessary complexity that could deter participation.
2. The FCA pointed out that the flexibility for suppliers to be able to choose their own tools for calculating carbon footprints should not translate into the collective adoption of non-scientifically robust tools, as this can undermine the credibility and reliability of the information. Retailers should be able to request comparable data to benchmark between suppliers. Importantly, competition must remain open both among measurement tools used to calculate carbon footprints and also between suppliers on sustainability performance parameters.
3. Participants should not exchange sensitive information or coordinate their competitive behavior regarding what their strategies and plans are in relation to decarbonization and how they communicate or advertise their carbon impact and footprint (i.e., their sustainability messaging).
4. In some cases, discussing and making public decarbonization commitments could be seen as a sensitive exchange of information if they uncover the individual supplier's future intentions. Efforts to encourage suppliers to publish decarbonization commitments are acceptable, but those efforts must not result in alignment on targets or discourage more ambitious goals.

Takeaways

The FCA's informal guidance is fully in line with the view expressed by the European Commission and several other EU national competition authorities regarding sustainability collaborations — those initiatives can be pro-competitive and permissible, provided they respect safeguards related to access, reliability of data, and limits on the exchange of sensitive information. As such, it aligns with the EU's broader policy to promote sustainability without compromising competition, and offers further practical insights for companies designing similar projects.

If your business is considering sustainable collaborations, make sure to:

• Adopt participation criteria and fees that do not exclude smaller players.
• Strike a balance between a) being flexible in allowing participants to adopt diverse mechanisms, but b) not collectively endorsing weak measurement tools, while c) ensuring users have access to comparable data.
• Build robust safeguards to prevent the exchange of competitively sensitive information and alignment around topics such as future business strategies or sustainability targets, including efforts not to go beyond a common lower denominator in pursuing sustainability goals. As demonstrated by the Car Emissions cartel case,³ sustainability is increasingly viewed as a key parameter of competition. Any coordination that limits companies' efforts to individually compete on progress towards sustainability can expose participants to antitrust risk and put them squarely on regulators' radar, even if regulatory requirements are otherwise met
• Keep clear records of governance measures to demonstrate adherence to antitrust rules.

Footnotes

1. FCA, Informal Guidance no 25-DD-02 of October 23, 2025 on the creation of a platform for collecting and sharing data on suppliers' carbon footprints in the French retail sector (published on October 30, 2025).

2. European Commission, Guidelines on the applicability of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to horizontal co-operation agreements (2023/C 259/01), para. 530.

3. EC Decision AT. 40178 – Car Emissions, July 8, 2021.