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As the UN’s COP29 climate meeting in Baku wraps up this week, IKEA CEO Jesper Brodin has a message for those who missed it—or those who would like to go back: “Our transformation has begun and it’s irreversible,” he told me over the phone. from Azerbaijan “There’s no way we’d reconsider it because of politics.”
As for the US and other world governments, he and other “Chief Climate Officers” he said in a letter released before the meetingIt is “time to double down on climate action”, rather than walk away from it.
However, unfortunately for Brodin, it’s a message that seems to be falling on deaf ears, both in Baku and in Washington.
In Baku, developing country negotiators called for climate finance offered by the EU and other leading economies.joke”, being too low for the necessary transition. In the US, on the other hand, the new Trump administration will almost certainly leave the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Why then does Brodin continue when so many others are falling by the wayside?
Perhaps the answer is this: the logic of companies like IKEA, which are “accelerating” their climate action, he suggested, is indisputable. Brodin said that decarbonisation is “the biggest economic transformation that has happened since industrialization”, and for companies that are leaders instead of lagging behind in the field, it has already “provided great economic advantages”.
For some of its products, IKEA already recycles more than 19% of its inputs, cutting costs in its supply chain and reducing its carbon footprint, he said. And in its stores, IKEA is already carbon neutral while saving money, having invested more than $4 billion in its renewable energy production, he said.
“Carbon-smart is cost-smart,” he said. “It has nothing to do with who is president in the United States”
And in a strange twist, IKEA and the new US administration may become bedfellows after all. While the furniture company’s climate vision and hyperglobal sourcing approach clash with Trump’s, the company plans to expand its retail footprint and local U.S. sourcing in the coming years, Brodin said, offering a boon to consumers and workers. , and politicians too.
“We have a very ambitious plan in the US, Brodin told me. “1. the strategy is to increase penetration. We have to be where the people are. But we are also looking at acquiring more in North America. This has nothing to do with the tariffs, but because we have too high a share of the volume of transport, and because we are dependent on the currency.’
“But it is clear that we are against the tariffs,” he also said. “We have never experienced a successful period with tariffs at IKEA. At the end of the day, customers have to pay the price.’
More news below.
Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
Amendment (November 28, 2024): an earlier version of this article said that for some products it is already recycled. 90% of his income. It was a misunderstanding. The percentage is correct 19%
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