At IKEA, sustainable development is a priority in more than one respect. As a whole, IKEA's corporate sustainability strategy covers three pillars:
- Healthy & sustainable living
Offering products and solutions to empower more and more people to make more sustainable daily choices.
Related post: Sustainable living ideas from IKEA catalogue 2019
- Fair & equal
Contributing to a better life quality in disfavoured communities.
Related post: IKEA Democratic Design Days 2018: sustainability news
- Circular & climate positive
Adopting more sustainable processes and exploiting natural resources consciously.
Read more below
Last week, I was invited to visit IKEA Aubonne, a champion store in Switzerland for the sustainability systems they have in place in the building.
The store was opened on 21 March 1979 by Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA's founder) himself, who also had a little office in the store.
Btw, did you know that Switzerland has been the first country where IKEA opened a store out of Sweden? I didn't!
The site of Aubonne has been considerably extended and improved in the last years and inaugurated big changes in September 2017.
Fun fact from the inauguration party. At IKEA they don't cut red ribbons. Swedish tradition celebrates openings by sawing a branch, and this is indeed what was done!
Today, IKEA Aubonne is among the most sustainable IKEA stores and makes for a good summary of IKEA's strategy in terms of the use of resources.
Lighting in the building is 100% LED. Also - since 2015 - IKEA only sells LED lighting solutions.
LED bulbs are an incredibly sustainable choice. They have an extremely long life (between 15,000 to 50,000 hours!) and use much less electricity than incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of light. Switching to LED lighting actually allows 85% energy savings and makes changing a bulb a task to be repeated after about 10 years!
Talking about energy savings; by 2020, IKEA will use 100% renewable energy and become energy positive, i.e. produce as much renewable energy as it is consumed in production and stores. The roof of IKEA Aubonne is already equipped with 6,628 m2 of solar panels that produce part of the electricity used in the building. We were lucky enough to have good weather the day of the visit, so we could have a walk up there and see them in real life.
But the environmentally positive strategy extends beyond electricity.
By 2020, IKEA also aims to:
- source all wood, paper and cardboard from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified forests;
- keep supporting credible forest certification in collaboration with WWF and contribute to FSC certification of 15 million hectares of forest in priority areas (corresponding to more than double the total area needed to supply IKEA's operations);
- promote a sustainable use of water and increase access to clean water in communities where it is not currently available;
- use only renewable and/or recycled plastic (which is huge in the scope of using plastic more responsibly);
- reduce waste from store operations by 10% and recycle or energy recover 90% of it.
Extract from People & Planet Positive - IKEA Group Sustainability Strategy for 2020
From the rooftop, the visit moved to the heating room in the basement. The building is heated mainly with pellet. Although the debate is still open on whether or not this can be considered a sustainable heating method, what is good for sure is that IKEA uses wood dust from production facilities to produce pellets, transforming waste into a resource.
Collecting rainwater is another sustainable measure they're implementing at IKEA Aubonne, which gives a more sustainable water source for fire extinguishing sprinklers and toilet flushing.
So does this all mean IKEA is perfect and flawless? Absolutely not!
Sustainability is a journey and making mistakes is part of the game whether we like it or not (I really like this quote from IKEA's founder!).
The good thing is that at IKEA they're continuously researching and involving themselves actively in sustainability, while also allowing us consumers to make a difference in our own lives. Because together we can build a more sustainable future!
Once again a big thank you to Johana and Aurélien for the visit!
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