WBJ: IKEA initiated the debate “From Green Deal to Good Deal. Challenges and opportunities related to the European Green Deal.” What was behind this initiative?

Karin Sköld: At IKEA, we perceive “Green Business as Good Business.” Although sustainability is often perceived as a cost, we see it as an investment in a better future for the many. We try to convince other companies and decision-makers to follow our way of thinking. That’s why we initiated the debate on the subject during the European Forum for New Ideas in September. I think that now is the time to take a leap and speed up our actions if we want to secure a livable planet for future generations. IKEA already takes its part of the responsibility: in our strategy, we address global challenges, we are committed to transforming our operations so that in 2030 we will become “People and Planet Positive,” meaning that we need to be 100 percent circular and climate positive. We are ready to work across institutions and markets, with the business community and civil society to deliver the vision set by the European Green Deal. We see it as our priority globally because we subscribe to the “One Planet – One Home” vision.

You are not only the CEO of IKEA Retail in Poland but also its chief sustainability officer. How is IKEA working with sustainable development – in production, supply chain and consumer education?

We look at sustainability in a holistic way. We try to implement a sustainable approach at every stage of our products’ life cycle. In our ambitious “People and Planet Positive Strategy,” we aim to use only renewable or recycled materials in our products by 2030. Over 40 percent of our products are more sustainable already, i.e., made from recycled, renewable materials or materials which come from more sustainable sources. By becoming “Climate Positive” we mean reducing more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) than the IKEA value chain emits. What’s more, we commit to being a fair and equal business, creating a positive social impact for everyone across the IKEA value chain – by achieving gender equality and eliminating the gender pay gap, which we practically did in Poland. In 2019, the difference between the salaries of our male and female employees was only 0.16 percent. When it comes to consumer education, we have great inspirations on our website IKEA.pl/dlaplanety. We strongly believe that climate action starts at home and that everyday efforts sum up and bring us closer to a better life on a healthier planet. Recently, we launched the IKEA Better Living app where you can find suggestions of small steps you can take if you want to tackle climate change at home.

Poland is one of the biggest production hubs for IKEA globally. Regarding sustainability, will this develop further? For how many people have you created work in Poland?

Yes, it’s true. Today, almost 20 percent of IKEA products in the world are made in Poland. In terms of production for IKEA, Poland is second only to China. What’s more, last year, the value of IKEA products for export reached €3 billion, which accounted for nearly 28 percent of Polish furniture exports in 2019. This means that if all IKEA suppliers were treated as one entity, they would be among the top five largest exporters in Poland. In terms of sustainability, we have just launched an updated IWAY [IKEA way of responsibly procuring products, services, materials and components] code of conduct that regulates the conditions one has to meet to become an IKEA supplier. We revise them regularly so they reflect the current state of research and sustainable goals. When it comes to creating jobs in Poland, IKEA directly employs 15,000 people. Additional 75,000 people work for our suppliers across the country. Especially now, in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, our priority is to keep current employment and working conditions. So far, after the first wave of the pandemic, we have managed to keep this promise.

How bad has Covid-19 influenced IKEA’s business in Poland?

We already know that we didn’t meet our business goals set for the financial year 2020 (September 2019 to August 2020). The seven weeks of lockdown in March-April definitely constituted a unique experience, a true test of agile management in practice. The stores were deprived of what constitutes a spirit of IKEA – meeting customers face-to-face, helping and inspiring them to arrange their homes in a functional and beautiful way, always with a twinkle in the eye. Thanks to the incredible abilities of our employees, we managed to transfer this approach to remote sales and remote planning. Many of our coworkers learned how to support telephone sales, planning kitchens online and were engaged in collecting online orders in the stores. I am deeply thankful for their engagement! Their hard work had tangible results. I want to stress again that in these difficult times we managed to secure current contracts and working conditions. The safety of our employees and clients, including psychological security, is the top priority for IKEA. Right now, during the second lockdown, we benefit from the accumulated experience and focus on online and remote sales.

The unique shopping experience in IKEA – walking through a labyrinth and touching or trying the products – must be very difficult to move online and secure the same amount of ad-hoc shopping. What have you done to support the online experience for your customers?

Indeed, it is hard to imagine a walk through an IKEA store online. Maybe we should offer possibilities of virtual visits like many museums do these days. Coming back to what we already did, first of all, we secured remote planning services. These services are extremely popular in IKEA and now we offer them online, sharing inspirations and our know-how. Planning services include interiors on our newly launched Interior Design Hub and PAX, METOD, and BESTA systems. This allows for virtual meetings with the clients – what our employees miss these days. We have also launched the IKEA app, the first shoppable app that has a lot of inspiration. Moreover, our digital team works hard every day to make the online shopping experience as close to the IKEA store shopping experience as possible. We did a revamp of our webpage, providing more inspiration online. We analyze consumer activity on a daily basis and introduce changes because we want our webpage to enable easy, intuitive and satisfactory shopping.

From the positive side of Covid-19 have you learned something new about yourself, your company and customers in the period?

I am again reminded of the fantastic team I have the opportunity to work with here in Poland. During the pandemic, I was able to see with my own eyes, what Ingvar Kamprad [IKEA founder] used to say – that a crisis brings out the best in us. It is true that it brings us together as a team and within the organization. The spirit of the Polish team is very unique, there is a lot of entrepreneurship, agility and engagement while facing a difficult situation like we had this year. What’s more, I can see that IKEA values such as togetherness or leading by example are very strongly represented in IKEA Poland. The key business learning is of course speeding up online transformation. Some processes that seemed very complicated and lengthy, turned out to be doable when they received clear priority. Personally, I see it as a great achievement during this difficult time. On the other hand, what we could see is that home became more important than ever. The various activities our customers need to arrange within their four walls reached an ever-high level. We saw a significant increase in interest in home office furniture and accessories, which was naturally caused by the need to provide space for homeschooling and work from home. Good information from IKEA’s point of view is that we can inspire how to combine all the different needs while keeping the interior friendly and organized. That’s why we have just launched the Interior Design Hub I mentioned earlier.

What are your hopes for 2021?

Like everyone else I guess, I hope for the end of the pandemic and for people to stay safe and healthy. I wish for the limited impact of the pandemic on the world economies. I strongly hope we draw learnings from this difficult time and we appreciate in the future what we can achieve when we work together. What’s more, the pandemic has shown us that we as humans are vulnerable to forces of nature. Though tragic, this is a good example of what might happen if we don’t stop overexploiting Earth’s resources. I think that now more than ever we need to work together and gather everyone to act on preventing climate change. 

Karin Sköld took over as president of IKEA Retail Polska on September 1, 2020, and also became the director for sustainability. Previously, Sköld was a regional director and was responsible for nine IKEA stores in Poland located outside Warsaw.