4-minute read
Written by Casey Clair, Energy & Climate Advocate
Welcome back to another edition of our Sustainability Spotlight featuring Brayden Solberg from IKEA Winnipeg. IKEA has incorporated many green initiatives so your business can be sustainable. Be sure to check out their sell-back program, circular hub, recycling collection wall, their electric vehicle charging stations, and more!
Speaking with Brayden, it’s clear that IKEA knows that sustainability is the future. IKEA Winnipeg has its own sustainability committee and has partnered with community organizations to be sustainable and socially conscious within the city. IKEA Winnipeg works with Mother Earth Recycling for mattress and computer component recycling.
IKEA Canada has partnered with non-profits like Siloam Mission, Oyate Tipi Cumini Yape Furniture Bank, and Making It Home Your Way to provide gently used furniture to families in need through their as-is section, as well as providing food donations to Second Harvest, diverting food waste from the landfill.
A photo of a Mother Earth Recycling truck outside of the IKEA Winnipeg store. Provided by IKEA Winnipeg.
IKEA Winnipeg has worked to divert approximately 86% of their in-store waste and greatly reduced their energy consumption, saving 2500 hours worth of electricity by re-evaluating facility lighting. Brayden says that it’s a noticeable shift in not just the ways that customers interact with products and recyclables at the store but also how staff responds to green initiatives such as paperless receipts and forgoing paper portion cups,
“I think it’s about shifting people’s mindset from thinking about sustainability as an inconvenience to making them believe that sustainability is a good thing and to keep making the earth a more eco-friendly place so that we can be here longer.”
Inside IKEA Winnipeg, you can almost immediately see the recycling wall for items such as batteries, lightbulbs, fluorescent tubes, computer parts, and even clean clothing. To solve issues such as saving hard-to-recycle items from the landfill, working with partners in the community is the solution. So, make sure to come to IKEA to shop, eat, recycle, and charge your zero-emission vehicle!
It’s not only the inside of IKEAs that has seen sustainable growth. More than 75% of all IKEA stores have electric vehicle charging stations, and they hope to have 100% electrified fleets completing deliveries by 2025. As well as lowering their carbon emissions, IKEA Winnipeg’s staff regularly volunteer for community clean-ups.
Where can other businesses start? Brayden says,
A photo of volunteers standing in front of the IKEA Winnipeg store parking lot. Provided by IKEA Winnipeg.
“Take a look at things that you’re doing at the business level and just try to find the small ways that you can make a difference… Just to open your eyes to the different changes that can be made, and they don’t always have to be the most complex things. They can just be simple things sometimes.”
Want to be in our next Sustainability Spotlight? Get in touch with The Chamber’s Energy and Climate Advocate, Casey Clair or go to our website and send in your details for social media support, specifying that you want to be in our Sustainability Spotlight. Want details on how to make your business more energy efficient? Come talk to Casey at the Efficiency Manitoba booth at our next Membership Luncheon: Did Somebody Say, Skip? on March 1, 2024.
