Furniture giant IKEA has pledged to phase out plastic packaging by 2028. With this move, the company is aiming to reduce plastic waste and develop packaging solutions around renewable materials. The phase-out will happen in steps, starting with an all new range by 2025.
IKEA’s business model involves packaging as its core component, and the company is looking to focus on affordability, sustainability, and safe handling. To tackle the problems of plastic wastage and pollution, the company has already been making a stringent effort in decreasing the amount of plastic used in packaging solutions. Currently, less than 10% of the total volume of packaging material used annually by IKEA has plastic. In closing the remaining gap by removing plastics from consumer packaging solutions, the company aims to continue the movement towards only using environmentally-friendly materials.
Erik Olsen, Packaging & Identification Manager at IKEA of Sweden says “phasing out plastic in consumer packaging is the next big step on our journey to make packaging solutions more sustainable and support the overall commitment to reduce plastic pollution and develop packaging from renewable and recycled materials. The shift will happen progressively over the coming years, and mainly be focusing on paper as it is both recyclable, renewable, and widely recycled across the world.”
IKEA spends roughly over a billion Euros on approximately 9,20,000 tonnes of packaging material. This is just on an annual basis. Moving away from plastic in consumer packaging will not only require close collaborations with product development teams but also novel engineering solutions. Plastic packaging could remain in some parts of the IKEA food range, especially to maintain the food more securely and efficiently, but will still come from renewable or recycled sources.
“Ingenuity is part of the IKEA heritage, and packaging is by no means an exception in that regard. Shifting away from plastic in our consumer packaging solutions will doubtlessly be a challenging task in the coming years. With this movement we aim to spur packaging innovation and use our size and reach to have a positive impact on the wider industry beyond our supply chain,” says Maja Kjellberg, Packaging Development Leader at IKEA of Sweden.
