A young man dressed in work clothes is removing the fabric from a yellow armchair inside a colourful, modern workshop.

Transforming into a circular business

Our ambition is to be circular and climate positive by 2030, and to inspire and enable the many people to live a better everyday life within the boundaries of the planet. This is a huge change that impacts every aspect of what we do: from how we meet customers to which products and services we develop. It will affect our complete IKEA value chain and the sourcing of energy and materials.

9,500+
products have been assessed for circularity.
18 million
More than 18 million spare parts were offered to customers in FY21 to extend the life of our products.

There’s a growing awareness of the impact humanity has on the planet; it shapes the way people value the things they own, what they care about, and how they make buying decisions. No one wants to be wasteful, but people struggle with how to maintain, repair, and eventually pass on things they believe still have value. At the same time, many can’t afford what they need for everyday living.

We’ll continue to make products affordable and accessible by developing circular solutions for customers who want to care for the products they already own, those who can’t afford or don’t want to buy new products, and those who want to pass things on. We will never compromise on quality and safety.

Our strategic goals for 2030:

Designing circular products

To ensure all products can be reused, refurbished, remanufactured and eventually recycled, we have developed circular product design principles to guide us through this process. We will innovate and invest in our home furnishing offer and always lead with Democratic Design. It’s about doing things right from the beginning and designing products that enable a systemic shift towards a circular economy; generating as little waste as possible.

Explore circular product design

Read our Circular Product Design Guide (PDF)

We have assessed more than 9,500 products to determine how well existing products in the IKEA offer fulfil our circular product design principles. As a result, we have set product development roadmaps outlining the actions required to make sure all products are circular by 2030. In FY21, when we began acting on the roadmaps, the average fulfilment rate was 76%, and the lowest-performing product rate was 36% (FY20: 28.6%). This performance rate keeps us on track for our 2030 goal.

Highlights from the IKEA Sustainability report FY21

Designed to move and grow with you

A key enabler to prolonging the life of products is built-in, easy-fix flexibility. One example is the wedge dowel, a click-technique that eases the assembly, disassembly and eventual reassembly of IKEA furniture so you can take it with you when you move. Another example is extendable beds that are designed to grow with your child for many years.

A wooden table leg with a wedge dowel mechanism about to be attached to a wooden tabletop placed upside down.

A two-seater sofa with a chaise longue part is shown twice, once with a woman sitting on it, once showing storage inside.

Circular design that’s adaptable

When we design for standardisation and adaptability, it ensures products can be reused and refurbished through scalable maintenance and repair services. Standardised parts also allow remanufacturing by reusing parts in other products. At IKEA, we are creating circular solutions for existing and new customers to acquire, care for and pass on products.

IKEA shares online product design tool to accelerate the circular movement

We are committed to designing all products with built-in circular capabilities by 2030. To inspire others to do the same, we are now sharing our insights through an online, easy-to-use interactive tool created for designers, companies, and anyone who wants to assess the furniture and home furnishing products they already have at home.

Find out more about the design tool

A woman holding a sofa part without cover in a white-brown living room with large windows, a beige sofa, pillows and plants.

Using renewable or recycled materials

Materials are the biggest contributor to the IKEA climate footprint, where extraction of raw material represents more than 50%. Our material agenda is speeding up as we find new sources and develop new materials. By 2030, we aim to use only responsibly sourced renewable or recycled materials in our product range ensuring that we have a positive impact by regenerating resources, protecting ecosystems and improving biodiversity.

We aim to only use renewable or recycled materials sourced in a responsible way by 2030.

A living room with a KLIPPAN sofa, a pillow, a coffee table and FLISAT toy storage in wood filled with soft toy dinosaurs.

Innovating to reduce the use of resources

Laminated veneer lumber (LVL) is an engineered wood product that reduces the use of wood by up to 40%. This new material is strong enough to replace metal in some applications, which greatly reduces the climate impact. The process also generates less waste than many other processing methods. The iconic KLIPPAN sofa is one example of how we are using this new technology to create better, more sustainable products at lower costs.

We’re aiming for 100% recycled polyester

In 2019, we announced our goal to convert all virgin polyester into recycled in textile products by the end of 2020. In 2020, we reached the milestone of having recycled polyester in 90% of our textile products. Now we are accelerating this transformation until we reach our goal of only using 100% recycled polyester throughout our product range.

Recycled polyester looking like a ball of white fluff on a white background.

Alternatives and end-of-life solutions for foam

The corner of a thick, cream-coloured foam mattress with ribbed edges and holes on the surface, without cover.

We’re constantly looking into alternative materials and end-of-life solutions for products. This includes innovations that reduce the amount of foam we use in products that provide comfort, like beds and sofas. sofas. We’re currently working with the recycling company RetourMatras B.V. to reduce foam pollution. Additionally, we’re in the final stages of testing recycled polyol, which has the potential to remove 3 million mattresses a year from incineration or landfill. And after using renewable polyols made of soy for six years in North America, we’re now introducing this alternative material in Europe.

Testing more circular services

As always, nobody can do everything alone – which is why we need to develop long term relationships with our customers, connect where it adds value, and co-create the future together. To do this, we are testing and developing new business models and concepts. We want to enable customers to prolong the life of their IKEA products through convenient solutions that inspire them to acquire, care for, and pass them on in circular ways.

Creating markets for second-hand items

The back of an open truck filled with furniture and a man helping another man that’s carrying a yellow armchair.

A growing number of IKEA markets buy back IKEA furniture from customers who no longer need it, and re-sell these good-quality second-hand items to new customers in the As-Is areas. IKEA Sweden has tested an innovative pop-up store stocked entirely with second-hand IKEA products. Experiences from this test will be used to learn more about the potential of this service.

Making it easier to prolong product life

A man with dark hair, a beard and tattoos is looking underneath an extendable wooden table while adjusting spare parts.

During FY21, we provided more than 7,200 different types of spare parts to enable customers to prolong the lifespans of IKEA products. We also launched our easy-to-use online ordering solution for spare parts globally on the IKEA website. It’s available on the country-specific sites as part of the services offered.

Joining forces with others and leading by example

At IKEA, we want to lead by example, influence change, and share our stories and insights while listening and learning from others. We work with long-term commitments and relationships with suppliers, business partners, NGOs, communities and different stakeholders around the world. All to accelerate the transformation from a linear to a circular economy.

We work with nearly 2,100 suppliers to minimise the environmental footprint of the IKEA supply chain while improving working conditions.

A woman and a man discussing a technical drawing and making adjustments at a work table with tools in a factory environment.

IKEA partners and collaborators have become increasingly important in solving complex challenges. In FY20, we started a collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) to establish a common language around circularity. In September 2021, EMF published a glossary of circular terms created in collaboration with IKEA.

Through our advocacy efforts, we support policymakers with knowledge and experience as they set the legislative foundation to enable a systemic transformation into a circular economy. We’re focusing on creating clarity as well as providing a factual basis for global common definitions and cross border regulatory alignment.