Ikea to boost sustainability with more veggie choices & single-use plastics ban


At the Democratic Design Days in Älmhult, Ikea has just announced new commitments to inspire and enable sustainable living - making it easier for people to reduce their climate impact and contribute to a world without waste.

Inter Ikea Group CEO, Torbjörn Lööf said, “Our ambition is to become people and planet positive by 2030 while growing the Ikea business. Through our size and reach we have the opportunity to inspire and enable more than one billion people to live better lives, within the limits of the planet.”

Commitments for 2030 include:
• Increasing the proportion of plant-based choices in the food offer, like the veggie hot dog (pictured) launching globally this August
• Removing all single-use plastic products from the firm's range globally and from customer and co-worker restaurants in stores by 2020
• Designing all products with new circular principles, with the goal to only use renewable and recycled materials
• Offering services that make it easier for people to bring home, care for and pass on products
• Becoming climate positive and reducing the total group climate footprint by an average of 70% per product
• Achieving zero emissions home deliveries by 2025
• Expanding the offer of affordable home solar solutions to 29 Ikea markets by 2025

At Democratic Design Days, Ikea demonstrated several new solutions and innovations that enable people to save lots of water, clean the air in their homes and products made from new innovative and recycled materials.

Lena Pripp-Kovac, Sustainability Manager, said, “Becoming truly circular means meeting people’s changing lifestyles, prolonging the life of products and materials and using resources in a smarter way. To make this a reality, we will design all products from the very beginning to be repurposed, repaired, reused, resold and recycled.”

To become climate positive, Ikea will reduce more greenhouse gas emissions than the value chain emits by drastically reducing the climate footprint of the products and operations in absolute terms, capturing and storing carbon within the value chain and working together with home furnishing suppliers across their entire factories (not just the manufacturing for Ikea). In addition, Ikea will enable customers to save and generate renewable energy at home.

Lööf concluded, “Change will only be possible if we collaborate with others and nurture entrepreneurship. We are committed to taking the lead working together with everyone – from raw material suppliers all the way to our customers and partners.”