Overview
Filling your house with Swedish furniture is already a wallet-friendly affair, much to the joy of anyone who likes nice homewares but also likes sticking to a budget. Come 2020, however, it'll also be an environmentally-friendly choice, with IKEA announcing plans to ramp up its sustainability measures.
Over the next two years, the furniture retailer will phase out all single-use plastic products from both its range and its restaurants all around the globe. That's right — you won't find all those Allen keys in tiny plastic bags taped to your Billy bookshelves, or whatever other flat-packed wares you're fond of. And you won't be taking any frozen meatballs home in throwaway plastic bags either.
IKEA has also pledged to only use renewable and recycled materials in all of its products by 2030, alongside a range of other initiatives — upping its plant-based menu items from this year, reducing its home delivery emissions to zero by 2025 and expanding its range of solar offerings to more countries by the same year.
It's all part of the company's goal to abide by 'circular principles'. As IKEA's Sustainability Manager Lena Pripp-Kovac explains, "becoming truly circular means meeting people's changing lifestyles, prolonging the life of products and materials and using resources in a smarter way." Accordingly, they'll be designing "all products from the very beginning to be repurposed, repaired, reused, resold and recycled."
It's not IKEA's first attempt to shake off its 'fast furniture' reputation, with the brand unveiling a non-disposable collection with Danish designers HAY last year. Still, the announcement brings the company into line with the growing movement towards ecologically conscious packaging and products, as seen in supermarkets and other businesses around both Australia and the globe — eradicating singe-use plastic bags, straws, takeaway containers and more, and working towards banning non-recyclable packaging outright.