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Just over a year ago we launched People and Planet Positive,
our sustainability strategy.
Why have we called it People and Planet Positive?
It’s because we want our business to have a positive impact on the world.
On a more sustainable life at home, we have made some great progress.
We sold more than 22 million LED products and they last for 20 years.
That’s like more than 400 million years of energy efficient light
we’ve given our customers over the last 12 months.
On energy and resource independence,
we’ve made great strides also on energy production.
We’ve increased the amount of wind farms we have
and now we’ve got well over 100 wind turbines
in 7 countries around the world.
We’ve got now more than 500,000 solar panels.
This is clean energy from the sun.
And once they are up there, the energy is free.
On the resource side, the progress we have made
has been outstanding on cotton.
We are changing the commodity and it halves the water use.
It slashes pesticides and because the input costs are lower
and the yield increases, farmers get more money.
So we have been working with many NGOs and with WWF and others
to get better cotton in place.
We’ve now gone to more than 110,000 farmers
and we’ve got 72 percent, so nearly three quarters
of our cotton is better cotton today.
The same thing with wood.
We have worked again with WWF, with the FSC and other organizations
and over the last 10 years, we’ve had 35 million hectares
come into this responsible, well-managed forest state and be certified.
That is an area the size of Germany.
We added 1.5 million cubic meters of preferred wood, FSC wood
and recycled wood just in this last 12 months.
If we had logging trucks parked, bumper to bumper, with that wood in it,
just the wood we’ve added this year,
you’d fly for an hour over those logging trucks.
All of it is responsible.
IKEA foundation has supported many projects in the last 12 months.
But one that is really innovative and quite close to IKEA really
is looking at how to get better housing for people
in emergency situations, in refugee camps.
Normally they’d be in a canvas tent.
So we’ve looked at the flat packing approach
and now got small modular homes that can be erected quickly
from flat packs that will last for at least three years.
So it’s good from a cost point of view and it is much better for refugees.
That’s a real strong connection with the foundation.
We’re beginning our journey to be People and Planet Positive.
We’ve made some great strides
and I’m excited about the year we’ve had.