In  fiscal year (FY) 2016, IKEA Group – the furniture and homewares retailer – generated 560,650 tons of waste, of which 88.7% was recycled or incinerated for energy recovery from the company’s operations worldwide, including 389 stores.
For material recycling rates, the company achieved 80.3% in retail, 81.7% in distribution centres and 80.5% in IKEA Industry – its furniture production arm.
By August 2020, the company aims to recycle or energy recover 90% of the waste from its own operations. Of this, 80% of the waste from stores and distribution centres and 90% from IKEA Industry would be material recycled, it claims.
The Group uses baling machines, compressing waste packaging into bales, to make recycling of packaging waste more efficient and reduce transport costs. The company aims to introduce more than 150 balers across 16 countries by FY19.
IKEA Group is also developing a new reporting and management system to track waste, which will be launched in 2018, along with new training for co-workers and an updated Waste Management Handbook.
The report notes that while the focus has been on increasing recycling, in the future more emphasis will be put on decreasing the amount of waste produced. Waste from IKEA stores makes up more than 77.2% of its total waste, which the Group aims to cut by 10% by 2020.
In terms of food waste from its restaurants, IKEA aims to halve the amount of food waste produced and send 90% to be recycled or turned into a resource such as compost or biogas by 2020.
To read the full story, visit .