Chosen as one of Canada's Greenest Employers for 2013:
By Richard Yerema and Julien Gagnier, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors
(Apr 21, 2013)
Some of the reasons why IKEA Canada Limited Partnership was selected as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2013):
regularly conducts environmental audits to ensure its stores continue to maintain and improve their internal efforts to recycle, reduce waste and save energy -- and each store location maintains an environmental committee that meets regularly and works to ensure that their store is living-up to its audit standards and goals -- and all new hires receive sustainability training
beginning in 2011, the retailer became the first major retailer to phase-out the sale of incandescent bulbs in favour of low-energy bulbs like Sparsam, LED, Halogens and solar lighting products
offers preferred green parking spaces for customers who drive hybrid, fuel-efficient or electric vehicles, and offers a shuttle bus service at its Toronto store locations
maintains recycling depots at Canadian store locations where customers can drop off compact fluorescent light bulbs (which contain low levels of mercury), halogen bulbs and old batteries free of charge -- and even accepts used bulbs and batteries from non-IKEA brands
instead of celebrating Earth Day, IKEA Canada has celebrated Earth Month for the past two years to raise awareness amongst co-workers that most materials can be creatively re-purposed -- the company hosted a month long competition that encouraged employees to submit their unique re-creations with employees voting online for their favourites
internationally, the parent company maintains a strict sourcing policy for its suppliers of wood products, demanding that all wood used in its products is of a known origin -- and supports this policy with in-house forestry specialists who monitor and work closely with the World Wildlife Foundation and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSD) to reach its long term goal is to source all wood for its products from independently verified sources.
the coffee that IKEA offers is also UTZ Certified (and is introducing tea and chocolate certified products), which is an international certification that works to ensure that growers provide workers health and safety training, access to proper healthcare, affordable housing and schools for children -- and coffee producers must also reduce environmental impacts of their operation -- preventing soil erosion and using less energy, water, fertilizers and pesticides
the company recently installed a total of 3,790 solar panels atop three of its Toronto-area stores as part of the Province of Ontario's Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program -- collectively the massive system is capable of generating about 960,000 kWh each year or enough to power approximately 100 homes
the company first conducted energy audit at its Canadian stores back in 2007 and currently monitors all energy consumption at store locations with a long term focus on increasing energy efficiency and ultimately utilizing 100 percent renewable energy -- the company's newest store locations are already 40 percent more energy efficient than store built a decade ago
has a longstanding partnership with Tree Canada where employees participate in the annual "Pick a Tree, Plant a Tree" initiative -- the non-profit organization has planted over 70 million trees since 1992 and IKEA Canada employees have planted over 20,000 trees during this time -- and IKEA also supports this initiative by directing a portion of the revenue from every Christmas tree sold to the non-profit organization
the forward looking retailer recently published a inspirational book entitled "Our Never Ending Job" that celebrates the company's many accomplishments but, more importantly, highlights the fact that there are many steps yet to be taken on the road to building a truly sustainable organization
Background Information
Major Canadian hiring locations: Burlington ON, North York ON, Etobicoke ON, Vaughan ON, Ottawa ON, Montréal QC, Boucherville QC, Edmonton AB, Calgary AB, Vancouver BC, Coquitlam BC, Winnipeg MB.
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