Recycle materials, not ideas: IKEA’s circular environmental thinking inspires innovative products

The TÅNUM rug is an IKEA product that almost seems to come from an earlier time – not just in look and feel, but the way it’s made. When IKEA co-workers discuss their company’s plans for the future, one of their primary goals is to reduce the environmental impact of everything they do, from the way products are designed to the way they are consumed. To describe their approach to meeting that goal, the term they use is “circularity.” This is the idea that what is often considered waste can actually be a resource: new products should be constructed from materials that can someday be used to manufacture other new products. If IKEA can design all its new products that way, it will cut down on the need for raw resources and be a huge step toward its goal of being a fully circular business by 2030. Circularity is sometimes talked about interchangeably with recycling, and recycling is certainly a huge element of it: the company is constantly trying to make more items like the ODGER chair, which gets at least 85 per cent of its raw material from renewable wood and recycled plastic. But recycling is an act; […]

Click here to view original web page at Recycle materials, not ideas: IKEA’s circular environmental thinking inspires innovative products