26 Jul Sustainability at IKEA Part 1
What does sustainability look like? I've come across many attempts to define “sustainability”, but so far only one clear way of describing what a sustainable organization – and society as a whole – would look like. I found this clear and systematic vision in The Natural Step founded in 1989 by Dr. Karl-Heinrik Robert, a Swedish oncologist. The first corporation to adopt this approach to sustainability was the Swedish home furnishing giant, IKEA. In this series of blogs, I'll present an overview of The Natural Step framework and IKEA's incorporation of this sustainability framework into the heart of its operations.
This is a three-part blog series:
- Part 1 – IKEA's Initial Steps
- Part 2 – IKEA Today
- Part 3 – IKEA Round Rock Store
Part 1 – IKEA'S Initial Steps
IKEA's initial steps toward a more sustainable corporation are well-documented as a case study in the book The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology and the Evolutionary Corporation. The following is a synopsis of that case study with some of my own explanatory notes in parentheses.
Back in 1990 IKEA faced its first challenge to making The Natural Step an integral part of its corporate culture: educate everyone from executive management to entry-level employees and suppliers.. Dr. Robert, being a scientist, was fairly technical in his approach to describing a sustainable organization. IKEA's training design team translated his original approach into language people of many differing educational backgrounds could understand. The training program evolved over several years and a good deal of trial-and-error.
IKEA's training program presented the core of The Natural Step approach in the following manner:
The Four System Conditions for a sustainable organization/society:
- Cease using resources extracted from the Earth's crust (i.e. materials like crude oil, coal and metals ).
- Stop use of unnatural, persistent substances (i.e. persistent synthetic chemicals that don't biodegrade quickly).
- Allow space for nature and the natural cycle.
- Harmonize use of resources with natural regeneration.
The Fundamental Scientific Principles on which the System Conditions are based:
- Everything spreads..(the natural tendency toward entropy, or disorder)
- Nothing disappears. (conservation of mass and energy)
- Concentration and structure give value. (e.g. ink and water are more valuable separately than mixed together)
- Green cells provide concentration and structure. (Green plant cells convert solar energy and materials in the Earth's crust into usable materials for animals and humans.)
Eight key concepts to translate the System Conditions into possible actions:
- Renewable (renewable raw materials and energy)
- Degradable (biodegradable)
- Sortable (products designed for disassembly and recycling)
- Nature undisturbed
- Save (always look for ways to reduce use of materials, water, energy)
- Quality (long-lasting products that can be repaired instead of discarded)
- Efficiency
- Reuse
Out of IKEA's employee engagement and The Natural Step education program came various ideas and initiatives including a practical step model to classify products, evaluate suppliers and clearly state an ultimate goal. Co-workers (employees) in the textiles division created a four-step ranking system that considered customer health, production impacts and raw material source. Step 1 was to meet basic requirements for product health and safety. Steps 2 and 3 involved further reductions in toxic substances plus low-impact manufacturing processes. For textiles the ultimate goal and fourth step was certified organically-grown raw materials. By the late 1990's all IKEA business areas adopted a similar approach.
IKEA North America adopted some approaches unique to that subdivision of the company. In the mid-1990's every U.S. and Canadian facility, store and warehouse had its own, full-time Environmental Coordinator. They also choose to lead by example and avoid advertising as an environmentally friendly company.
The above is where the company was in the late 1990's.. They made a good start of it. With executives like then President Anders Moberg taking the attitude that “Nothing is impossible.” and a general corporate attitude that mistakes are learning experiences, you could see why. But IKEA hasn't ceased its efforts to tackle the seemingly NEVER ENDING job of becoming a truly sustainable enterprise.
Reference:
Nattrass, Brian and Altomare, Mary. The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology and the Evolutionary Corporation. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2001.
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