Karen Pflug, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ingka Group, shares her insights and lessons learnt on Ingka Group’s updated electric vehicles (EV) targets, the challenges transitioning to zero-emission transport, and the importance of setting ambitious targets to spark change.
The way people live has changed drastically in the last decade, resulting in a significant increase of online shopping and home deliveries. We knew that the only way to meet our customers in a sustainable way was to invest in the zero-emission vehicle transformation.
Transitioning to sustainable, affordable, and safe mobility can create better communities. The transport sector is essential part of any thriving city or town – for us, it’s how we meet a growing number of our customers. With increasing urbanisation being seen around the world, with over half of the world’s population currently living in urban areas – a proportion that is expected to increase to 70% by 2050*, we also see an increase in passenger and freight transport in cities, which in turn increases GHG emissions, air and noise pollution and traffic congestion.
As the largest IKEA retailer in 31 countries, Ingka Group firmly believes that businesses such as ours have a crucial role to play in transforming our own operations and advocating for an urgent transformation of the transport sector. An important part of that is to set bold and ambitious climate targets, as this creates momentum and shows leadership towards a transition to a net-zero society. As part of our commitments to the Paris Agreement we need to halve emissions by 2030 and become net zero by 2050. This means we need to cut CO2 emissions in all stages of our value chain – including customer home deliveries.
What we have learnt and achieved so far
In 2018 we decided to take a leadership position on this and made a global target for all home deliveries to be made by zero emission vehicles by 2025. We set this target without having all the solutions and answers in place across our 31 markets. But we are proud that we took this position and are open about the challenges we have faced since, as we now work towards our new reformulated targets, to achieve more than 90% of home deliveries made by zero-emissions vehicles by 2028 and achieve more than 90% of company owned and leased vehicles used in our operations to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2028.
We’re changing too and we have seen a significant increase in online shopping, which has resulted in an increase in home deliveries and emissions since the goal was first set.
- Globally 41.1% of retail home deliveries (over 6.3 million deliveries), were made by zero emission vehicles in financial year 2024, up from 24.6% from the previous year.
- Home deliveries currently account for 14.2% of Ingka Group’s mobility emissions across its 31 markets, prompting us to set ambitious targets for zero emission deliveries.
- Today IKEA products are delivered 100% emission free across 20 cities, in 300+ IKEA locations by more than 2500+ electric vehicles.
The road ahead
Our new updated targets now reflect the wider global challenges faced in the electric vehicle sector, ** with lack of charging infrastructure, differing local policies and a limited range of freight electric vehicles (EVs) among a number of challenges being faced on the road to zero emission home deliveries.
These challenges are the reasons why we have now stated 90% and not 100%. We believe we can state more than 90% with confidence that many of our markets will exceed this target, but we also recognise some challenges may remain in some countries. The aim will always be to go beyond 90% but the gap to 100% represents the uncertainty that will always remain when delivering to customers, such as geography in certain countries where we need to reach very remote areas, lack of chargers in remote locations, the growth of the business, possible vehicle breakdowns that require replacement by a non-EV vehicle at short notice to deliver our customers products as promised.
As we have stated in our new Annual Summary & Sustainability Report, to overcome our challenges, we have introduced a dedicated project implementation manager working on zero emissions home delivery in each of our retail countries to address local challenges, supported by a global team. Alongside our continued investments in EVs we are also piloting innovations, investing in EV companies and collaborating with industry partners. For example, we are partnering with truck manufacturers to test new EVs and now use over 30 different models globally. To overcome lack of charging infrastructure, we invest in our own charging infrastructure and also work with local partners.
In every country, IKEA teams are looking for innovative new ways to deliver to our customers with localised solutions including electric cargo bikes in parts of Italy and Germany and electric three-wheelers in India and Australia. We continue to work with speed and expand our electric vehicle (EV) charging networks. We are also looking beyond our own operations, by advocating for policy change to overcome barriers to transitioning to zero-emission transport. These changes enable quicker adoption of zero emission transport options, not only for IKEA but also for wider society.
We will continue to collaborate with our partners and advocate for wider societal change to accelerate the transition to zero-emission transport. As part of that we are proactively engaging with policy makers and collaborating with partners like Climate Group through EV100, to advocate for change in how we travel and transport goods while phasing out fossil fuels for mobility.
We still believe that zero emission deliveries are the future of retail. As we look ahead and work with our new targets, through continued investment, innovation and collaboration we remain strongly committed to our customers that their home deliveries will be made by zero emission vehicles.
Karen Pflug, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ingka Group
The Ingka Group High-Level electric vehicle (EV) policy asks include:
- Set ambitious targets for zero emission vehicles and phase-out of new sales for internal combustion engines, cars, and vans by 2035 at the latest. Simultaneously ensure that zero emission transport options are available, convenient, and affordable for all.
- Encourage and promote zero emission urban mobility (e.g. EVs), sustainable mobility policies, and alternative fuels such as green hydrogen and sustainable biofuels for long haul transportation.
- Increase the provision of reliable, affordable, and seamless charging infrastructure powered by renewables for zero emission vehicles for urban mobility and long-haul transportation. Include requirements for distance based and fleet based (charging per amount of hybrid/EV vehicle) targets to deploy charging infrastructure.
- Support research and development of sustainable biofuels, as well as other zero emission technologies.
*United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Sustainable Development Goals Indicators
**Report ‘Charging the EV Transition’ published by international non-profit organisation, Climate Group outlined that although leading businesses have increased their electric car fleets globally, companies still face challenges in less advanced markets where EVs are difficult to obtain and charging infrastructure is lacking.
Read more about EV and Sustainable home deliveries here: Zero emissions for home deliveries – IKEA Global
World Economic Forum: Zero-emission delivery is possible for retailers – here’s how | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
Why we advocate for a net zero world – To read more information on Ingka Group’s climate advocacy and policy asks, please go to the climate advocacy page on Ingka.com here: Climate change advocacy | Ingka Group
Media enquiries
For further information, journalists and media professionals can contact us at press.office@ingka.com or by calling +46 70 993 6376.
