IKEA has achieved the ‘holy grail’ of sustainable business development having successfully decoupled its financial growth from its GHG emissions output by reducing its climate footprint 24.3% while growing the business – compared to a 2016 baseline – by 30.9% in increased revenue.
Published in its Annual Summary and Sustainability Report, Ingka Group – IKEA’s majority business owner – revealed that its carbon footprint reduction has come primarily from implementing carbon saving measures such as renewable electricity and energy efficiency.
However, it notes that changes to IKEA’s business operations and sales have also contributed, including successfully doubling the number of customers using the retailer’s Buyback and Resell service. In 2023, 211,600 customers used its Buyback service to sell back IKEA products they no longer wanted.
Meanwhile, 2.2 million customers used its spare assembly pats service to maintain and repair their IKEA products, with 263,000 products sold via As-Is online reservations. More than 45.1 million products were given a second life compared to 42.6 million in IKEA’s full-year 2022 report.
Within the business transformation, new investments have been made into digital services, customer fulfilment, and across 60 new IKEA locations. Investments into renewable energy have also increased by €0.7bn, totalling €3.8bn since 2009.
“This year, we celebrated 80 years of IKEA. So much has changed in eight decades, yet we are still guided by the same vision: to create a better everyday life for many people. One of the highlights is that we managed to reduce our climate footprint while growing the business,” said Jesper Brodin, ceo of Ingka Group.
The Annual Summary and Sustainability Report is structured around four key movements: Better homes, Better lives, Better planet, and Better company and encompasses both financial and non-financial performance against a wide range of goals and provides a transparent account of performance, challenges, and achievements.
Throughout the year, Ingka Group focused on making a positive impact on everyone its business touches. Its positive financial performance now enables the business to reinvest into the areas supporting its transformation.
“The world is facing many challenges – climate change, increasing nature loss, and rising inequality, to name a few – but we are determined to be part of the solution,” said Karen Pflug, chief sustainability officer, Ingka Group.
“During the past year, we have continued to transform our operations and expanded our offer of products, services, and solutions to make it easier for our customers to adopt more sustainable habits, including switching to plant based meals. It’s also really encouraging that our circular services are becoming increasingly important for customers.
“In the past year, we have doubled the number of customers using our Buyback and Resell service. In our own operations we see continued progress in switching to renewable energy with over 79% of electricity now coming from renewable sources.”
IKEA is committed to the Paris Agreement and to contribute to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. In November last year, the Group strengthened its climate targets in alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative’s Corporate Net Zero standard and submitted these for approval to SBTi.
