(bright music)
- Jesper, thank you so much for joining us today.
- Thank you so much.
- So we have so much to talk about,
and I just wanted to start by asking you
about IKEA's commitment to climate action.
IKEA's committed to reaching net zero by 2030,
something we've done as well.
What made you take this step?
What gave you the confidence to know
that it was the right thing to do?
- It's simply, I think,
from a moral and ethical perspective,
it's not okay for us to pass this challenge over
to the next generation.
Now, on top of that, the fact is that north of
70% of all consumers in any market-
whether it will be China, India,
US, Sweden, or wherever we do our research-
people are deeply concerned about climate change,
and of course other topics as well.
And if you want to be relevant for customers and coworkers
in the future, you need to be a leader in this area.
Now, I think it's quite obvious
that being a low-cost company in the future,
you need to be very smart on how you use resources:
energy, raw material, and so on.
So, we think that this is good for the economy, basically.
- How do you think about this management
of the profitability pressures, investor expectations,
the things that one does in that regard,
while being on this incredibly ambitious, highly committed
long-term climate journey?
- Probably the most important thing for us leaders
is not to see this as a problem that we mitigate,
but more to say, we are establishing the new economy
for all good reasons.
I think the starting point for a business leader
is the leap of faith.
But then very close to that comes the understanding
of your footprint, your impact,
and how you can mitigate what really makes a difference
in your industry.
And at the other side of that process,
you will be an industry leader.
You will have lower costs.
You will have not only happy customers,
but you're going to be more attractive
as an employer as well.
- How have you thought about innovation
in the context of this challenge
and how you gear your R&D efforts,
or the various ways that you spur innovation
in the organization?
- When it comes to us, innovation has always been driven by
I would say a drive to serve the many people within wallets.
The day we made the flat-pack, invented the flat-pack,
it was simply to send a table with legs on it
was just too costly from a transport perspective.
So thereby we invited the customers to do part of the job,
to put the legs on the table.
Not everybody loves it. But, from an economic point of view,
that has served many people, right?
The interesting thing is now,
if you take the latest innovation in IKEA,
that we are right now implementing across
all our major furniture series,
is to have no fittings at all,
which is a great innovation: to take something away.
So, what we're doing is basically implementing
wedge fittings and other types of mechanisms that make it
so you don't need any screws, any glue, or anything.
It not only improves the account
from a sustainability perspective,
because there's no glue, no metal, no plastic.
It also makes the furniture easier to disassemble.
So you can actually use them more times.
And frankly, it's less costly.
- What lessons have you learned on the way?
What advice would you give to another CEO
that may be just getting started on this journey
to really think about how to think about commitments,
how to think about turning it into action?
- A lot of us leaders out there like to have a plan verified
before we make our commitments.
I think in this case,
we need to commit to the inevitable goal
of resolving climate change without having all the answers.
You want to be on the forefront of reaping
the benefits of the new economy,
both for your brand and for the real elements of cost
in the future.
And to get to that point,
you need to take some risks. And if you're wrong,
I'm sure future generations will forgive you
for one or two mistakes.
I don't think future generations will forgive us as CEOs
if we decide not to move on this global human crisis
that we are standing on the brink of.