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IKEA

Climate love

Efforts to replace a fossil-based glue that represents 5% of its global carbon footprint

Swedish furniture brand IKEA is switching to a new glue to help meet its climate goals, underscoring how small changes can make a measurable impact. Inter IKEA—which owns the IKEA brand, develops its products and manages its supply chain—said around 5% of its value chain’s carbon footprint comes from fossil-based glue in its particle-and-fiber boards, used in products such as cupboards, wardrobes and shelves. It said Wednesday that it is aiming to eliminate 40% of its fossil-based glue in the boards by fiscal 2030, which could cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 1.5 percentage points, depending on future business growth. A factory in Kazlu Ruda, Lithuania will be the first to use a biobased glue made from corn in industrial plants rather than the food chain. IKEA is also trialing other biobased glues. The changes are part of IKEA’s efforts to meet its goal to use only renewable or recycled materials by fiscal 2030. It’s not an easy transformation. We are talking about the industry using the same glues for 60 years and that glue has been optimized for performance and cost for 60 years,” said Venla Hemmilä, material and technology engineer at IKEA of Sweden. IKEA began searching for alternatives to fossil-based glue more than a decade ago, but found lower carbon, biobased options were too expensive and the industry wasn’t well prepared to supply them. Today, there is still a premium for biobased glues but it isn’t expected to be passed onto shoppers and should come down as production scales up. The company expects biomaterials to become more cost competitive with fossil-based materials in the coming years. IKEA hopes its manufacturing footprint will accelerate that cost reduction of greener alternatives and that other companies will follow its lead. It declined to provide the names of the green glue suppliers for competitive reasons. Glue became a focus for the group after 2016. That year IKEA examined how its climate goals aligned with the Paris Agreement and charted how they could expand the business while cutting their emissions, said Andreas Rangel Ahrens, head of climate at Inter IKEA Group. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ikeas-latest-climate-target-glue-fec7f216

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  • Gorffly mokua

    46 w

    Every effort counts!💚

    8
    • Kevin

      46 w

      Small goals really make the most impact

      7
      • George Kariuki

        46 w

        This is a commendable step towards sustainability.

        5
        • jamie lockwood

          46 w

          Every little bit helps

          5
          • Princess

            46 w

            This is a commendable initiative.

            4
            • walter lungayi

              46 w

              This is a great example of how companies can make a positive environmental impact by making small changes in their production processes.

              4
              • Sarah Chabane

                46 w

                Interesting!

                6
                • winnie nguru

                  46 w

                  I admire such companies that put their best foot forward when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint

                  4
                  • Rotich Kim

                    46 w

                    Impressive this will automatically reduce emissions

                    4
                    • Elizabeth Gathigia

                      46 w

                      A positive change that will help alot to lower carbon footprint

                      16
                      • Grace Njeri

                        40 w

                        @elizbeth_gathigia Reducing our carbon footprint is important because it mitigates the effects of climate change

                        1
                      • Joseph Githinji

                        46 w

                        This is a great way to help in reducing use of fossil by reducing production of products based with it. Congratulations to @IKEA for making this happen.

                        16
                        • Jane Wangui

                          45 w

                          @joseph_githinji any chance we get to reduce carbon footprints we grab it.

                          4

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