Swedish furniture giant Ikea plans to speed up its investment in renewable energy by spending an extra €4 billion ($4.8bn) by 2030 to build more solar and wind farms, along with installing electric vehicle charging points in its stores.
Over the last decade, Ingka Group (the owner of most Ikea stores) spent €2.5billion ($3bn) installing 935K solar panels on the roofs of its warehouses and stores and investing in ten solar parks and 547 wind turbines to more than cover its own electricity use.
Pia Heidenmark Cook, IKEA Group’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said:
We have already come a long way, and in this critical decade, we need to come together to accelerate a just transition to a society powered by renewable energy.
The new investment will bring Ikea’s green energy spending to €6.5 billion ($7.9bn) by the end of the decade and will include:
- Initial steps into green energy storage, to make better use of renewable energy generation.
- Electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen fuels to cut the emissions from its delivery vehicles.
Jesper Brodin, Ingka Group’s Chief Executive, noted that Ikea’s growing clean energy goals over the next decade would coincide with a crucial era in fighting the climate crisis. “We are in the most important decade in the history of humankind – climate change is no longer a distant threat, and we must all do our part to limit global warming to 1.5°C,” he added.
Brodin explained:
The cost of inaction is just too high and brings substantial risks to humanity and our business. We know that with the right actions and investments, we can be part of the solution and reduce the impact on the home we share – our planet – while future-proofing our business. For us, it is good business to be a good business.
The furniture giant plans to focus part of the new investment in India by fitting all its stores, warehouses, and shopping centers to run 100% on renewable energy by 2025. In Russia, Ikea’s parent company has recently acquired a 49% stake in eight solar farms, which will provide sufficient electricity to power all seventeen Ikea stores in the country.
