Ikea's sustainability report showed that the ever-popular furniture chain actually sent no waste to landfill in the UK for the first time in 2016. In fact, the company is making a small profit from its waste!
Joanna Yarrow, Head of Sustainability, said "We've turned waste from a cost to a resource. The next step is not just about recycling, but it's about using waste in our own operations."
And the furniture giant is not stopping there. Ikea has a £524m fund set aside for green energy, but has recently announced that it won't spend a penny of it in the UK because the government policies regarding renewable energy make it too difficult to invest.
Ms Yarrow said to the Huffington Post, "I would say that over the last five or six years it has become increasingly difficult to invest in renewable energy production in the UK, and that for a large organisation like Ikea which has the resources to invest, it would be great for the UK to benefit from it."
In the last few years in the UK, some subsidies for green energy have been scrapped, including the ending of financial support for onshore wind turbines last year. Friends of the Earth campaigner, Alasdair Cameron, said that Ikea's stance should be a "major wake-up call for government energy policy".
A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said, "Britain is one of the best places in the world to invest in clean energy. Last year a record high £13bn was invested in renewables across the UK and in November we reiterated our commitment to spend a further £730m per year supporting new projects."
