WWF and IKEA Conservation Partnership

WWF-IKEA / ©: WWF
WWF-IKEA
© WWF

Why are WWF and IKEA working together?

As a leading multi-national company, IKEA has established a strong internal programme to address social and environmental issues associated with its business wherever this takes place.
IKEA and WWF share common interests, particularly in seeing the considerate, efficient, long-term economically sound use of natural resources and ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable.

The Partnership, started in 2002, is founded on each partner's unique competencies and we now work together in more than 15 countries around the world to promote responsible and sustainable use of resources. The partnership focuses on three areas; climate change, cotton and forest.

In addition to working together in projects, WWF and IKEA want to inspire other companies and networks to address environmental challenges and make people’s lives at home more sustainable.

By working together we accomplish more!

Read more in factsheet about the partnership

Looking for the latest news on the partnership?

Download newsletter # 2, 2011

Download newsletter #3, 2011

Download newsletter #1, 2012

  Today, large corporations are key actors in rapidly changing patterns of consumption, demand and resource use. We are convinced that working together with multinational corporations will help to reduce their ecological footprint and to provide other companies with an example to emulate. IKEA is in many ways a forerunner and a good example to follow in transforming markets on a long-term basis, but IKEA also needs to be challenged in the work towards becoming a more sustainable company.  

Håkan Wirtén, Secretary General, WWF Sweden

Forest 

WWF and IKEA are committed to promoting responsible forest management to secure forest values for both present and future needs, and started working together in five forest projects in 2002. Today there are 13 forest projects included in the Partnership, which contributes to implementing The IKEA position of Forestry and achieving WWFs conservation targets.

The focus is to combat illegal logging, support forest certification, promote responsible timber trade, map and protect High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF) and to support responsible forest management.

Through the forest projects, the co-operation spreads knowledge and develops tools for a variety of stakeholders in order to improve forest management. The Partnership has also produced materials aimed at forest sector employees and policy makers to help build capacity and increase awareness.

Many challenges remain, but the projects have contributed to some exciting results, for instance to increased FSC certification in Russia. FSC certification was first introduced here in 2000, and the IKEA and WWF projects (started two years later) have played a key role in reaching 30 million certified hectares or about 25% of the Russia's leased forests.

Read more in factsheet about the forest projects

Cotton

In 2005, the co-operation was extended with projects focusing on reducing the environmental and social impacts of conventional cotton production in India and Pakistan.

These projects provide support; training and outreach to farmers that want to produce 'Better Cotton', a commodity that complies with the Better Cotton Initiative’s social and environmental criteria. This builds on the work that WWF have done since 2005 – helping farmers introduce practices that reduce the use of pesticides ('active ingredient'), chemical fertilizers and irrigation water, whilst also reducing farmers’ input costs and increasing their gross margins.
Today, approximately 47,000 farmers in the two countries are involved in how to grow Better Cotton through the joint projects. In 2010, the project results showed that farmers using Better Management Practices reduced the active ingredient used in their pesticide applications by 38% in India and 47% in Pakistan; reduced their use of water by 30% in India and 38% in Pakistan, and the use of chemical fertilizers by 32% in India and 41% in Pakistan on average, when compared with conventional farmers.

Read more in factsheet about the cotton projects


 

Climate

IKEA and WWF have identified climate change as one of the major global challenges and started cooperating to tackle this in 2007. Today, there are six joint projects aimed at identifying barriers and developing tools and innovative solutions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).

The aim of the projects is to find market transformation opportunities, search for low-carbon solutions that can contribute to reducing GHG emissions in society and to engage stakeholders throughout the value chain.

The projects cover a wide range of aspects, including product development, supplier operations, transportation, customer behaviour and recycling. Already, several projects have shown encouraging results. For example, the supplier project has proved that first tier suppliers can cut their energy consumption by up to 40 percent, and that many of them can use renewable energy or even become energy producers.

Read more in factsheet about the climate projects

We Love Wood Campaign


  • Watch this video to find out more about the "We Love Wood" Campaign



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