A table with wooden furniture parts and a number of hands holding some of them and pointing at an assembly instruction.

Designing for a circular future

The recipe for circular design success

Reuse

Refurbishment

Remanufacturing

Recycling

Our circular product design principles

Calculating a product’s lifespan

The emotional factor

Functional sustainability is key

Two hands, one holding beige-brown wooden fibers, the other one holding small white PET plastic pieces.

The design principles

1. Designing for renewable or recycled materials

A wall with small kitchen setups from different IKEA series in grey, white, and natural wood colour, and a kitchen table.

2. Designing for standardisation

A man in a hoodie with a yellow spray bottle and a green piece of cloth is cleaning and taking care of his sofa.

3. Designing for care

A closeup of two hands and a tatooed, muscular arm holding a wooden stool while grinding it manually with a sanding sheet.

4. Designing for repair

A living room in dark green and yellow tonalities, a modular soda, an armchair, storage furniture and different lamps.

5. Designing for adaptability

A hand attaching a wooden table leg with a wedge dowel mechanism to a wooden tabletop placed upside down.

6. Designing for disassembly and reassembly

Two hands unscrewing the star base from a red, upholstered swivel chair in a colourful, modern workshop.

7. Designing for remanufacturing

Two women outside an IKEA store, one stands next to a shopping cart and the other has her hands full of different textiles.

8. Designing for recyclability

Q&A

What is a circular product?

How does IKEA define the four circular loops?

How does a product qualify to be circular?

How does IKEA ensure that all products are evaluated for their circular capabilities in a consistent way?

What insights have you gained from the circular product assessments?

Why is it taking IKEA so long to make this change?

Will IKEA continue to sell non-circular products after 2030?

Will circular offers be available to all customers in every IKEA market? Will they be the same in all markets?

What is IKEA doing to enable customers to prolong the lifetime of their products?

Hacking is a popular way to keep products in use for longer. How does IKEA view hacking?