04 Jun IKEA pledges 1 billion Euros to fight climate change
Yesterday (June 4 2015), the world’s biggest furniture dealer IKEA announced that it plans to spend 1 billion Euros ($1.13 billion) on renewable energy projects and strategies to assist poor countries to manage climate change. Chief Executive Peter Agnefjall was adamant that prices at their outlets wouldn’t increase and that their investments would be good for customers, the climate and IKEA as well.
An internal IKEA review last year revealed that less than half of IKEA’s customer base saw the company as one that takes social and environmental responsibility. This was well below its goal of 70% of its customers seeing it in this way by this year. IKEA’s plan will see it generate all of the energy required for its shops and factories from clean sources by 2020. It will invest 600 million Euros on wind and solar power installations, which will take their total investment on these technologies since 2009 to over 2 billion euros. IKEA has already signed up to own and operate 314 wind turbines and has 700,000 solar panels on its roofs.
The IKEA Foundation, the charitable arm of the group will also invest 400 million euros by 2020 to support families and communities in nations that are vulnerable to floods, droughts and desertification.
Officials from 200 nations are currently meeting in Bonn Germany to prepare for the Paris Summit in December in which nations are expected to strike a deal to slow the pace of global warming. The Alliance of Small Island States, represented by Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, were heartened by IKEA’s investments and their corporate leadership.
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