The IKEA Group has effectively halved the carbon emissions from its global operations since 2010 due to increased use of renewables, energy efficiency initiatives and reductions in waste.
The company’s latest sustainability report for the 2016 financial year (FY) showed its emissions had dropped by 49% over the last six years. It had been hoped this would be achieved by August 2015, despite the significant progress made over this period.
The figure does not take into account emissions from shopping centres, which were only added to IKEA’s reporting scope for these results, and generate carbon emissions without selling IKEA products.
Within this broad target, the furniture giant is well-progressed towards its renewable energy targets after a prolonged period of investment in wind, solar and biomass technologies. Since 2009, the Group has invested EUR 1.5 million in its own solar and wind generation and committed a further EUR 600 million in FY15.
In FY2016, IKEA produced 3,209GWh from these three technologies, a third higher than the previous year, with renewables producing 71% of the amount of energy consumed in its operations. By August 2020, it is hope that all of the demand of IKEA’s operations will be met by clean energy.
However with shopping centres now taken into account this figure drops to 61%, with IKEA expecting to update its renewable energy plans over the coming year.
In addition to its own generation assets, IKEA also purchases renewable energy, with 61% of the electricity bought from the grid coming from these sources.
The company is also expected to adopt energy storage technologies after trialling lithium-ion batteries in Australia and Sweden. Forklift trucks powered by this battery chemistry will be introduced in Europe and Asia from September 2016 with the long term hope that these units will be reused at a later date to power other aspects of IKEA’s operations.
One potential application the company is already exploring is the possibility of powering LED fixtures uses direct current from batteries instead of alternating current from mains electricity.
IKEA is also increasing its efforts in energy efficiency as it moves towards a target of becoming 30% more energy efficient by August 2020 compared to the FY2010. It was already achieved a 15.5% improvement across its 340 retail stores – 232 of which have been retrofitted with LED lighting – as well as a 28.6% improvement in its distribution centres.
In addition to smart building management systems, using bio-waste for energy and other measures, the company is also installing power quality optimisation equipment to convert energy from the grid to a more suitable quality and quantity for the equipment using it. The report states this can reduce energy use by more than 5% with a payback time of less than five years.
The technology was Installed in 15 stores during FY16 with 35 more expected in FY17, although none appear to be in the UK.
The only target IKEA is in danger of missing is its target of reducing store waste by 10% by August 2020. In the last financial year, 16.5% more waste was produced than the FY2013 baseline year, with the company admitting it is “not on track” to meet this target.
