The world’s largest furniture retailer, the IKEA group, recently revealed its plans to greatly increase its investment in renewable energy. It is planning to double its current investment by 2020, bringing the total up to $4 billion dollars, and receiving 100% of the energy consumed at its stores and by its subcontractors from renewable sources by the same date.
The decision was made, in part, as a way to reduce costs, helping the company to remain affordable into the future. IKEA’s CEO, Mikael Ohlsson, stated in an interview that the projects will be a necessity if the company continues its fast rate of expansion.
“I foresee we’ll continue to increase our investments in renewable energy,” said Ohlsson. “Looking at how quickly we’re expanding and our value chain, we will most likely have to double the investments once more after 2015.”
Currently, IKEA owns a quarter of a million solar panels, and 126 wind turbines, covering 34% of its energy consumption.
The company has also been working to expand its range of energy efficiency, lighting, and water-use efficiency products, while also “testing out some solar solutions for customers in the U.K.”
This is a welcome development. Just last year, IKEA announced its plan to sell only LED lights by 2016, and to receive 70-80% of its power from renewable energy sources by 2015. Though its reasoning for doing this is, as noted above, mostly because it’s good business and will save the company money, it is still a positive development. It will hopefully serve as a wakeup call to other large corporations, showing that not only are renewables cost-competetive, but they will very likely save you significant money.
Source: Bloomberg
Image Credits: IKEA Group
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