Name: IKEA CEO: We plan to be climate-positive by 2030—hot dogs are part of the plan
Uploaded: 2023-09-21
Duration: 7 min 19 s
Description: INGKA CEO Jesper Brodin on why IKEA’s food offerings are more than complementary to the core business, and how the Swedish furniture giant is making its products more sustainable.

INGKA CEO Jesper Brodin on why IKEA’s food offerings are more than complementary to the core business, and how the Swedish furniture giant is making its products more sustainable.

IKEA CEO: We plan to be climate-positive by 2030—hot dogs are part of the plan

Leadership

INGKA CEO Jesper Brodin on why IKEA’s food offerings are more than complementary to the core business, and how the Swedish furniture giant is making its products more sustainable. 

Well, welcome to New York. I know you're here for a Climate Week. Uh So why don't we start with a few questions about IKEA and its plans for sustainability? So 2030 is only six years and four months away, not to put pressure. Are you sure? So sure you can be positive by that deadline. So, you know, I think sure it may be uh to be humble. It's not how we see it, but we have good guys. And in in our initial plans, which was actually drafted already at the cop in 2016 when the Climate Agreement was presented was probably one of the first corporate climate plans out there. We were uh supported by World Resource Institute Science based Targets and the climate plan for us basically to take us a positive means, we address what is we called discovery. So everything from the forest to the consumption of our consumers and actually what is even more important process is to hit a 50% target in the so called scope three activities. It is a bit technical, but at the bottom of this means that we need to all of us need to make sure we reduce about half of all the carbon emissions that we have by 2013 if it within our reach. Definitely, let me ask you a philosophical question. Can we have thriving economies in the industrial world while being less consumer? Because it seems to me that the only way we're gonna hit climate goals is collectively to be a bit less consumer. So can we solve a thriving economy? Thank you. I think, I think thank you for asking the question. It's an incredibly important, a very common question that I think uh any one of us as consumers are asking ourselves and it leads us to. So the answer is absolutely. And it's not only a philosophical question, but um I would say a metric and practical question. So if you take the the opposite angle, if you want to explore that by 2050 we need to reduce by 90% the carbon footprint 2030 50%. If the only mode for us would be to limit consumption, all of us can do the math that 90% less consumption in an expanding population of the world doesn't seem realistic to any extent of food or necessities of life or what not. So that means that in order to deliver to Paris, which we will need to do, we actually have to address consumerism itself. Um and building in circularity, energy solutions mobility into what we call score. And that is actually what we are right now doing so when I think of IKEA products, obviously, they're popular and they're popular people in their first homes and beyond. But is there something that can be done to the products or maybe you are doing that to make them more desirable to stay in the secondary market so that they have a 2nd and 3rd life as, as traditional furniture is. So I think actually back in the early two thousands, we we did a project around quality of those days. We, we um we list ourselves in the mirror and we saw that our quality was an and that also included that we, the way we had engineered the products was mainly for assembly ones. Uh But in fact, already done and even more so these days, we typically have a bigger market share in any given market in the secondhand market than in the first time. And, and it's quite logic when you think about it because a lot of the products in IKEA is related to a life situation that is limited to certain years. It might be a changing table for a baby. It might be things that you necessities of life when you move to your first student department or things that it's different life situation. So IKEA sharing second hand is actually bigger than in the first hand market. We are working with the second life in our own stores. Every IKEA today um store has a circular shop where we bring back uh products and we work with different modes of actually stimulating second hand use the role of artificial intelligence in in uh simplifying uh putting your products together for people. This is uh absolutely exciting and relative question at the same time. So I think at the moment, we are basically speed learning about A I and it was as late as in as in January when I myself had a bit of a wake up call, not only to the opportunity side, but the risk side of A I. So we are actually right now, the the biggest um we our top 500 leaders through our program that we could be concluded by, by uh Christmas where we basically educate ourselves to explore opportunities, challenges. We look being it also from an ethical point of view. Where are the borderlines for our engagement with A I? Um And then how do you use that as a leader? Uh For now? I think probably, and I say that humbly because we're still exploring the first line of A I intervention for us will be tailor made solutions with specific tasks uh to maybe reduce ways to enable better understanding of consumer behaviors and so forth. Um In that space, I don't think there are gene generative models uh fit for our business. So we are there by exploring how can we actually use it for our own benefit. Let's talk about hot dogs, the plant based hot dog is that turning out to be popular? And, you know, we have a plan. We are, um, I was actually responsible, I was working with the range including food. Um, must have been back in 2012 with our, we had, um, a moment where we collected the whole value chain around food. Food for is a complimentary business to help people, um, uh, to basically stay with us for a good day out. Um And we, we woke up to realize we're actually one of the big food providers of the world with a responsibility beyond complimentary. So to say so of those days, we, we actually rafted a strategy together with our suppliers and um NGO S and when we educate ourselves both on the climate impact and the health aspect of food and being a, a meat lover from, from IU, I realized I had a lot of learnings on the impact and the both of myself and of course, my surroundings since then, I, I have been progressing with a strategy for plant food offers. And there has been 22 aspects that the taste and the experience is as good or better and then that we managed to actually make it affordable to be them. So the first was the vegetable, maintain the plant bow. Uh The dog has been an alternative and now comes the plant dog, it's being scaled out as we speak. Um And for myself, it's actually interesting because when I do blind test of a, of a plant dog and a hot dog, I couldn't sense the difference. And I do believe that's, that's such a big breakthrough because intellectually I'm a vegetarian and it's down, down here that I sometimes struggle and I think there are many people like myself. So we hope it's going to be a success. I think it will be.