Dive Brief:
- Ikea announced last week that it’s scaling back a sustainability target that aimed for the furniture retailer to have all home deliveries of its products to be made by zero emissions vehicles by 2025.
- The Swedish furniture retailer said it has revised its goal and will now pursue an objective of using zero emissions vehicles to fulfill 90% of its home deliveries by 2028. Ikea said it will also aim to have zero emissions vehicles comprise 90% of the vehicles used for company operations by 2028.
- The company set the zero emissions delivery target in 2018 “without having all the solutions and answers in place across [its] 31 markets,” Ikea’s Chief Sustainability Officer Karen Pflug wrote in a Feb. 18 post. However, Pflug said the company is proud to have taken that initiative and is “open about the challenges [it has] faced since.”
Dive Insight:
Ikea attributed the change in strategy to a myriad of factors, including an increase in online shopping and the ongoing shifts in the electric vehicle sector. Ikea said the rise in online shopping ultimately increased home deliveries and emissions since the goal was first set.
In her note, Pflug said the company’s updated targets are now reflective of the broader challenges being faced in the EV landscape, including a “lack of charging infrastructure, differing local policies and a limited range of freight electric vehicles.”
These challenges are the reason why Ikea is looking to pursue 90% of its original goal by 2028 and not 100%, she noted, as the company recognizes that its operations in markets across the world will be able to achieve the former, while the latter poses “uncertainty.” Part of this uncertainty, according to Pflug, is due to the fact that the challenges to adopt EV infrastructure and greener methods of transportation may persist in some countries more than others that the company operates in.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration suspended the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program set by his predecessor and informed state transportation directors in a Feb. 6 memo that “no new obligations may occur” until guidance is updated. NEVI was included in the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021 and represents one of the Biden administration’s most robust efforts to expand the nation’s electric vehicle infrastructure buildout.
Despite scaling back its zero emissions delivery goal, Ikea said it had made progress on lowering its overall carbon footprint. The company said more than 6.3 million of its global home retail deliveries, or 41.4%, were achieved through using zero emissions vehicles in 2024, up from 24.6% in 2023. Further, it added that its products are delivered emissions free in 20 cities by over 2500 electric vehicles.
“We will continue to collaborate with our partners and advocate for wider societal change to accelerate the transition to zero-emission transport,” Pflug said. “We still believe that zero emission deliveries are the future of retail.”
