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Who knew that a retailer that popularized short-term cheap furniture could offer lessons on how to live more eco-friendly? But, over the last few years, sustainable initiatives have risen on Ikea’s website along with sustainable living guides. Since 2021, the furniture retailer has turned Black Friday Green by pushing their sustainable Ikea products to the forefront to make it easier for shoppers to choose circular, recyclable and reusable products over conventional furnishings.
Dubbed Green Friday, the retailer announced the launch of their Sustainable Living Shops, small spaces within their stores that will be dedicated to home furnishings made through sustainable initiatives. Coinciding with videos explaining the differences between recycled vs resold and other sustainable learning series, Ikea aims to share with its customers a few of the sustainable lessons they’ve learned about how to minimize its impact over the last year. It turns out that the brand that popularized fast furniture, has been practicing a few real sustainable initiatives that we can all adopt into our everyday lives.
Resell & Shop Used
Disposable, inexpensive, short-term furniture became a hallmark trait of Ikea. The furniture retailer became a billion-dollar company through this linear model while also becoming an economic disaster at the same time. The Environmental Protection Agency shows that Americans lust for cheap-throw-away furniture is on the rise with Americans throwing out 12 million tons of furniture and furnishings in 2018, almost a 30% increase from 2000. This excessive waste contributes to deforestation in some of the planet’s most sensitive habitats while landfill pollution increases. Recently, Ikea has re-evaluated this model to offer customers a way to sustainably ‘dispose’ of furniture by offering products a second life.
Ditch The Landfill. This Brand Will Recycle Old Clothes For You.
Similar to fashion retailers like For Days and Levis that will take back old clothing items and recycle them for you, Ikea is launching their own buy-back-and-resell program. Whether you’re looking to revamp your style or simply need to dispose of an old piece of Ikea furniture, the retailer will buy (through store credits) and either recycle or resell these items for you.
Know Where Your Products Come From
Every product that is in your home makes an impact. From the cotton fabric, dyes, wood materials, etc. – a series of resources have been taken from the earth to make a the products we use everyday. The environmental impact matters greatly depending on where they came from and how they were obtained. For brands, it’s important for them to reconsider the environmental impact from their raw materials and to rethink more sustainable solutions such as using recycled nylon or organic cotton to reduce plastic pollution and water usage respectively or sourcing sustainable wood.
Considering that retailers like Ikea have a heavy footprint in the wood timber industry, it’s important that they aim to safeguard forests and sustainably extract the natural resources they rely on. One sustainable initiative that Ikea has recently taken is to focus on where its wood comes from. Timber suppliers must have permits for logging to validate that they’re not engaging in illegal logging. Certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council are also required by timber suppliers to ensure that responsible forest management is taken into account to prevent deforestation.
Say ‘No’ To Single-Use Plastics
Ikea
Containers made from cane sugar. Wood forks made from responsible sourced wood. Paper straws. These are a few of the items that Ikea has brought in to replace single-use plastic in their stores. Since 2018, the company has begun phasing out plastic plates, bin-bags, freezer bags and cups and replacing them with more sustainable alternatives that can be reused or are made from renewable sources.
Going Plant-Based Can Make A BIG Difference
The livestock industry has been getting heat for its environmental impact. The Environmental Working Group reports that 100+ million acres of land are cleared annually for cattle along with 167 pounds of fertilizers used for live stock feed and cattle accounting for 20% of methane emissions in the U.S. These statistics are worrying especially when the United Nations warns about the importance of reducing greenhouse emissions and suggests that “a shift toward plant-based diets” could significantly reduce greenhouse gases emissions.
Ikea has recently been rolling out plant-based versions of their cult meals like hot dogs and meatballs. Their vegetarian dog is one of the ambitious vegan offerings made from a combination of carrots, kale and red lentils and is part of their broader goal to make 50% of their restaurant meals plant-based by 2025.