Last month, Ikea made it into the Optimist Daily after purchasing nearly 11,000 acres of forest in Georgia to protect it from being developed. Today, we bring you a whole new initiative from the furniture giant that involves turning the Swedish city of Helsingborg into a sustainable community.
In preparation for a 35-day fair that will kick off in the summer of 2022, Ikea is launching a green community project called H22 that will see the company establish a number of new urban farming, housing and energy concepts.
In Helsingborg’s Drottninghög suburb, for instance, Ikea will start growing fresh crops on-site and turn them into local meals for residents, which will also help create new jobs and businesses in the area.
Elsewhere, Ikea will turn an abandoned warehouse into a showroom for ideas for the homes of the future, with an eye on technologies that will “shape the form and function of a living space.” In addition, it will offer up its textiles and printing techniques in the hopes of boosting eco-friendly manufacturing methods.
Connecting the different sides of the fair will be the city forest of Fredriksdalsskogen where Ikea will create an outdoor camping space using sustainable material and a self-sufficient energy and water system. There, students from around from around the world will be invited to the area to design new affordable housing and utilities solutions. H22 marks IKEA’s latest push to adopt more eco-friendly policies.
The company previously pledged to be climate positive by 2030, starting with aim of generating more renewable energy before the end of 2019 than the energy its stores use. It also promised to stop selling non-rechargeable alkaline batteries by October 2021 due to concerns over waste and sustainability.
