As a growing number of people decide to switch careers to work on climate change, we’re running a series of interviews with people in climate-related jobs about their day-to-day work, from Microsoft’s Melanie Nakagawa and Google’s Kate Brandt to carbon removal-startup founder Mary Yap and climate tech investor Mia Diawara.
Ikea wants to be a circular company by the end of the decade, meaning all of its products can be repaired, refurbished, and eventually recycled, and it plans to use only renewable or recycled materials. The company has launched furniture buyback and repair programs. Circularity is one part of a plan to shrink emissions throughout its entire value chain; the company is also helping suppliers move to renewable energy, switching to electric delivery vehicles, and nudging customers to eat more plant-based food at its cafes in stores, among other things. We talked to Karen Pflug, chief sustainability officer at Ingka Group, which owns most global Ikea stores, about how Ikea is racing to cut its carbon footprint.
Fast Company: You’ve worked in a variety of roles, including as an innovation director at Nike and as the head of quality at Ikea. How long have you been interested in tackling the problem of climate change, and what led you to your current role as a chief sustainability officer?
Karen Pflug: First, I think it’s the best job in the world—the scope and the scale of the challenges that need solving and the contribution to make. But I studied as a textile designer many moons ago back in Manchester in the U.K., and my final year thesis in my degree was on eco-textiles and the rise of the importance of selecting the right materials to solve problems. That was in the early ‘90s. It was very much about trying to use design thinking to solve problems and make sure that natural materials and eco-textiles were used.
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