IKEA to Meet its Energy Production Goal by End of 2019

Ingka Group, the Dutch corporation which owns 367 of IKEA‘s 423 stores worldwide, announced at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York last week that IKEA’s renewable energy production is set to exceed its goal by the end of this year.

According to Ingka CEO Jesper Brodin, IKEA has been producing more power than what it needs to consume. Because of this, the company is expected to meet its renewable energy target, initially set for 2020, earlier.

During the past decade, Ingka has reportedly spent $2.8 billion USD (€2.5 billion Euros) on wind farms and rooftop solar panels for its warehouses and stores. The budget also includes Ingka’s investment on the world’s first off-site solar parks.

In an interview with Reuters, Brodin said:

“Being climate smart is not an added cost. It’s actually smart business and what the business model of the future will look like… Everything around fossil fuels and daft use of resources will be expensive.”

IKEA’s Energy Production Exceeds Consumption

To date, Ingka already has 49 percent shares in two solar parks located in the United States. It also owns a wind farm in Romania, over 500 wind turbines across 14 countries, and almost a million solar panel units installed in its stores and other facilities around the world.

Due to its massive investment in sustainable energy, IKEA claims that it’s the only global brand “to own and operate its own renewable energy infrastructure.” Aside from producing its own renewable energy, IKEA is also planning to make solar energy more enticing to people.

“We want to empower millions of customers to produce and use renewable energy,” IKEA’s Chief Sustainability Officer Pia Heidenmark Cook, said.

In an effort to counter global warming, more and more brands and companies have started shifting to sustainable energy.

At last week’s UN Summit, Google has announced a package of renewable deals totaling 1,600 megawatts. It’s comprised of 18 projects that the tech giant will build across the U.S., Europe, and in Chile.

Google claims that its recent energy purchase, which was the largest corporate renewable purchase in history, will increase the wind and solar agreements of the company by over 40 percent.

Online shopping giant Amazon also announced its climate action plan called “Climate Pledge,” which aims to make the company 100% renewable energy reliant by 2030.

“We’ve been in the middle of the herd on this issue, and we want to move to the forefront,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, said.