The largest furniture retailer in the world IKEA announces they will be selling electricity from renewable sources for households in Sweden starting from September, making shifts to green energy more accessible.
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What is Happening?
- Swedish furniture giant IKEA is branching out and will start selling renewable energy to households in Sweden from September, with plans to expand to other countries in the foreseeable future.
- The new initiative will now allow Swedish households the ability to buy renewable electricity from solar and wind parks, and track their energy usage through an app as well as sell back surplus electricity.
- This could potentially invite a significant amount of new families shifting to green energy, especially for average households that cannot build their own solar generation.
- IKEA’s parent company Ingka Group, is partnered with Svea Solar, which produces solar panels for the Swedish furniture company, will buy the electricity on the Nordic power exchange Nord Pool and resell it without surcharge. Swedish consumers will then pay a fixed monthly fee.
- At the moment, IKEA also sells solar panels to households in 11 markets around the world, but the company is eyeing opening up the global market in the very near future.
- While the furniture company has been accused as one of the major companies responsible for deforestation, and was recently implicated in logging in protected Siberian forests for their children’s furniture collection, IKEA has publicly made goals to be “climate positive” and to minimise negative impacts on the environment.
- IKEA has set to halve its absolute net greenhouse gas emissions across its entire company value chain by 2030. This encompasses how raw material is produced and collected to being responsible for customers’ disposal of their furniture.
- Offering renewable energy to consumers directly will help IKEA reach that goal as customers’ use of their products such as appliances and electronics account for around 20% of IKEA’s total climate footprint.
- Additionally, the company group has over 750,000 solar panels installed across its own stores.
- Earlier this year, IKEA announced a programme to help its suppliers in India, Poland, and China transition into 100% renewable electricity, where up to 1,600 direct suppliers will be covered.
“We want to make electricity from sustainable sources more accessible and affordable for all,” the company said in an official statement. “IKEA wants to build the biggest renewable energy movement together with co-workers, customers and partners around the world, to help tackle climate change together.
Featured image by: Wikimedia Commons
