IKEA launches new strategy to eradicate single-use plastic by 2020
11 Jun 2018 --- Scandinavian furniture chain, IKEA, has announced a global commitment to eradicate all single-use plastic products in its range by 2020. The move comes as part of the company’s new People and Planet Positive strategy, which aims to make IKEA a “truly circular business” by increasing sustainability and minimizing environmental footprint.
“Our ambition is to become people and planet-positive by 2030 while growing the IKEA business,” says Inter IKEA Group CEO, Torbjörn Lööf. “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.”
“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,” he adds.
The new IKEA People and Planet Positive strategy sets the direction for all IKEA franchisees and covers three focus areas:
• Healthy and Sustainable living – inspiring and enabling more than one billion people to live a better everyday life within the limits of the planet.
• Circular and Climate Positive – transforming into a circular business and becoming climate positive by reducing more greenhouse gas emissions than the IKEA value chain emits, reducing the climate footprint of IKEA products and operations in absolute terms.
• Fair and Equal – creating positive social impact for everyone across the IKEA value chain and in all areas of the IKEA business.
IKEA’s new sustainability commitments include:
• Removing all single-use plastic products from the IKEA range globally and from customer and co-worker restaurants in stores by 2020.
• Designing all IKEA 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.
• Increasing the proportion of plant-based choices in the IKEA food offer, such as the veggie hot dog launching globally later this year.
• Becoming climate positive and reducing the total IKEA climate footprint by an average of 70 percent per product by working together with home furnishing suppliers across their factory operations, not just the manufacturing for IKEA.
At this year’s Democratic Design event, held annually, IKEA demonstrated several new solutions and innovations that will enable people to save water, clean the air in their homes and use products made from innovative and recycled materials. These include a tap nozzle which can save more than 90 percent of water used and the development of textiles that will help purify air in the home.
“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,” says Lena Pripp-Kovac, Sustainability Manager for IKEA.
