Like many of its competitors in retail, Sweden’s Ingka Group — the IKEA brand’s primary retailer — faces a daunting Scope 3 challenge: Value-chain emissions made up 98 percent of the 30 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) the company emitted in 2016, the baseline year for its net-zero target.

Special Series

Chasing Net Zero

Intro: A case-by-case look at corporate progress on 2030 climate goals

Profile 1: Nestlé is on track for a 50 percent cut in emissions. Here’s how (holes and all)

Methodology: How we assess a company’s progress on net zero

Yet Ingka is unlike its peers in that it has made remarkable progress toward its targets, which call for a 50 percent reduction by 2030 and reaching net zero by mid-century. In 2024, the company emitted 21 million tCO2e, putting it roughly on track for its end-of-decade goal. 

By contrast, at least half of the world’s biggest retailers don’t have a formal net-zero target at all. For example, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer — known as a pioneer in supply chain decarbonization — is struggling to deliver on its own short-term commitments.

Ingka’s secret weapon? The company’s commitment to investing in climate projects is significant: the more than $5 billion it’s spent on solar and wind projects since 2009 have accrued enough assets for Ingka to be classified as a midsize energy company. 

But this second profile in the Chasing Net Zero series — our company-by-company look at progress toward 2030 climate goals — reveals that just as important might be Ingka’s close ties with Inter IKEA, which supplies it with everything from bookshelves to Swedish meatballs. Few other retailers are as dependent on one supplier. While Ingka buys from 1,500 suppliers, 81 percent of its climate footprint comes from IKEA foods and products, according to data published by both companies. By comparison, Walmart has at least 100,000 purchasing relationships.

Ingka and IKEA are separate, privately held entities with individual net-zero targets, but their goals were developed in close collaboration and validated last year by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Senior staff from both organizations participate in the Inter IKEA Strategic Sustainability Council, which meets twice a year. 

“This is not just a sustainability transition to the sustainability team, it’s about the whole of IKEA and the whole of the business,” said Simon Henzell-Thomas, climate and nature manager at Ingka.   

This relationship provides granular insights into supplier emissions that create an advantage few others in the sector enjoy. “As a retailer, it is a huge lift to get at this data because you are the last point on a very long supply chain,” said Honor Cowen, global head of retail and apparel at consulting firm Anthesis Group.

Largest liability: Materials

Ingka manages 574 locations in 31 countries and generated $47 billion in fiscal 2024 — 90 percent of IKEA’s total sales. The retailer’s top emissions source by a wide margin is purchased goods, which made up 36 percent of its Scope 3 total in its 2016 baseline year. 

The Scope 3 emissions come from operations as diverse as cattle ranches and data centers, but the highest impact within the category, at almost 10 million tCO2e, is from raw materials. Ingka is aiming to squeeze that down to 5.5 million metric tons by 2030, according to its first net-zero transition plan, published in February. 

To reduce those numbers, Ingka will need Inter IKEA to change how its goods are designed, produced and transported. “Moving toward more renewable materials, more sustainable materials, that is going to be a huge part of reducing our footprint,” said Henzell-Thomas. 

Clues about the potential for Ingka’s progress are found in Inter IKEA’s 2024 climate report. Here are plans for three of the five materials that contribute most to Ingka’s and IKEA’s emissions:

• Metals. Reducing the steps required to manufacture products can cut emissions. IKEA is using stronger grades of steel for some products, such as its Mittzon desks, to reduce the amount of the material required. It’s also boosting use of recycled metals: The company uses a minimum of 70 percent recycled aluminum in widely available products including cabinet doors and mirrors.
• Wood. IKEA plans to switch to recycled wood for one-third of its wood products by 2030, up from 16 percent now. One sticking point is the lack of recycling infrastructure for fiberboard and particle board. The company has set up its own recycling line in Poland to produce pegboards and better understand what’s needed to scale this work. It’s also investigating bio-based glues, which help cut emissions from board production. The downside is that bio-based glues could make it harder to disassemble certain products, hindering IKEA’s and Ingka’s recycling goals.
• Textiles. IKEA is switching to lower-carbon sources for the fabrics, foam and stuffing used in bed linens, curtains, rugs, towels, sofas and mattresses. Promising developments in 2024 included curtains made of waste polyester and a sofa stuffed with felt made of fabric waste rather than polyurethane foam.

These changes will require technologies that are still emerging, along with policy changes and infrastructure investments. “We have a plan, but we also have gaps there that we’re going to close,” Henzell-Thomas said. 

Bright spot: Product use at home 

Ingka’s second biggest Scope 3 liability, at 24 percent of its 2016 total, comes from emissions generated by its customers’ use of the ovens, stoves, refrigerators, lighting and other products it sells. This is a bright spot for the company: It has met its high-level goal of cutting the impact in half by reducing emissions to 3 million tCO2e tons in 2024. The push now is to slice an additional 2 million tCO2e off the category by 2030. 

Product-level changes are a big part of this success. IKEA improved the efficiency of its entire lighting line by 90 percent simply by phasing out sales of incandescent bulbs, for example, decreasing related emissions by 57 percent from its 2016 baseline. Now the focus is on reducing the electricity used by appliances such as refrigerators and ovens. 

Ingka’s clean energy services, which help customers install solar panels or heat pumps at home, are another key driver of reductions in this category. And Ingka’s investment arm plans to spend $3 billion more before 2030 on more renewable energy installations and other key technologies for the clean energy transition, such as alternative fuels and grid-scale batteries.

Policy-dependent lever: Mobility

Ingka’s third-largest Scope 3 component contains the transport-related emissions from delivery services, as well as customer, co-worker and business travel. The retailer has reduced this footprint by just 13 percent, to 2.3 million tCO2e, since the 2016 baseline year. What’s more, emissions rose slightly between 2023 and 2024. Ingka’s transition plan calls for an additional 40 percent reduction by 2030 to 1.6 million tCO2e.

To achieve that, Ingka is investing in electric and alternative-fuel vehicles to increase the proportion of home deliveries it fulfills with zero-emissions vehicles from 40 percent to 90 percent by 2028. The retailer is also providing more pick-up locations near customers’ homes.

Ingka is prioritizing work in regions where regulatory support for a transition to zero-emissions vehicles is more favorable. In Paris, for example, Ingka uses boats on the Seine to transport goods to distribution points where they are picked up by EVs and delivered.

Circular solution: Product end of life

Ingka’s circular economy initiatives intersect with the work IKEA is doing to cut materials emissions. These efforts reduce Ingka’s emissions related to product end-of-life — which contributed 6 percent of Ingka’s overall footprint in 2016 — while providing IKEA with a source of recycled materials. 

Ingka reported 1.6 million metric tons in emissions for product end-of-life in 2024, down 15 percent from 2016. It achieved this by expanding sales of secondhand items to a majority of stores, distributing millions of free parts to encourage repairs, refurbishing the IT equipment it uses in stores and cutting food waste. The goal is now to cut 0.3 million more tons by 2030.

Sriram Rajagopal, head of climate at Inter IKEA Group, said he was confident of hitting the 2030 goal for these emissions. But he noted that Ingka and IKEA can’t solve systemic issues, such as limited recycling infrastructure, on their own. “We need collective effort where many actors contribute to a circular economy and society,” he said.

Ingka’s investment arm is also putting $1 billion into circular economy startups. The retailer estimates that those ventures have so far recycled around 1.9 million metric tons of materials, avoiding 5 million tCO2e. 

One example is RetourMatras, which recycled more than 1 million mattresses in 2024, avoiding an estimated 90,000 tCO2e. It sells that material back to customers such as IKEA for use in new production. 

Ingka’s edge: Net-zero integration

Leaders across all levels of Ingka are accountable for delivering on emissions reductions. Ingka’s chief sustainability officer, Karen Pflug, is part of the group’s management team, which meets at least eight times annually. The group is directly accountable to Ingka’s executive board, which includes the CEO, deputy CEO/CFO and group legal counsel.

This sort of deep integration is indicative of leaders in retail sector decarbonization, said Evan Sheehan, head of the retail, wholesale and distribution practice at Deloitte. The most successful companies, he noted, share a few best practices:  

• Top executives buy into the company’s sustainability strategy and provide resources to support it.
• Teams agree on clear metrics for demonstrating the return on these investments.
• Well-defined models are developed to capture and use data to drive net-zero goals.

Ingka does all three. CEO Jesper Brodin is fond of saying that “being climate smart is also resource smart, cost smart and business smart.” 

Up to 85 percent of the privately held company’s profits are also put toward business improvements, including those designed to reduce emissions. Historical analysis suggests other retailers, including Walmart, reinvest around 40 percent of profits.

That board level support is another reason Ingka says it is poised to deliver on its 2030 goal. “We’re pleased with where we are,” said Henzell-Thomas. 

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The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis.​

We might forget it, but it’s true: By absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, the world’s forests and oceans shield us from the consequences of our emissions.

Indigenous peoples have long known this and have managed their land for generations by protecting and restoring the world’s natural carbon sinks to mitigate the environmental crisis. 

As more companies wake up to this fact, they’re recognizing the need to develop nature-based projects and programs on ancestral lands with the input of the community. So much so that key features of inclusive nature-based projects and programs are emerging, providing pathways for companies to promote equitable engagement.

Prioritizing community engagement 

It’s estimated that 54 percent of the world’s intact forests are on Indigenous lands storing vast carbon stocks. For generations, people from these communities have used their extensive land management expertise to restore and replenish the environment. 

It’s obvious, but I think it needs saying: The best nature-based projects and programs are those which invite people with the deepest knowledge of a local environment to the decision-making table. Without their expertise, initiatives are more likely to fail. And if Indigenous peoples and traditional and local communities are excluded, projects will face social and reputational risks, too.

When these communities are properly included, the outcomes are stronger and longer-lasting. Programs can only endure if local people feel a genuine sense of ownership and see clear benefits tied to their development priorities.

For example, I recently spoke with colleagues at Silvania’s Race to Belem campaign, who are working with the Brazilian state of Tocantins to establish a state-level effort to curb deforestation. They made it clear that the involvement of Indigenous peoples, local communities and smallholder farmers was critical for success. They’ve discussed proposed revenue sharing and spending with those communities and the program will invest a percentage of its profits in sustainable livelihoods.

Community credentials count

Corporate buyers increasingly deploy internal teams and third-party experts to assess project integrity and flag risks. But up-front diligence is only part of the picture.

While early assessments often focus on the technical quality of emissions reductions and carbon accounting, buyers are placing a growing emphasis on a project or program’s social credentials — how it engages communities, protects rights and shares revenues. After contracts are signed, however, oversight often relies on developer reports or informal feedback. That’s not a reliable basis for managing risk or ensuring accountability.

In response, some companies are beginning to use tools from human rights and supply chain audits in carbon projects and programs. For example, companies such as Microsoft and Salesforce have started including third-party verification, stakeholder engagement and safeguards for Indigenous rights in their carbon credit investment agreements. These approaches reflect a growing understanding that durable, high-integrity outcomes require independent, ongoing oversight, particularly when it comes to community engagement and revenue sharing.

Many corporate buyers would welcome clearer and more consistent reporting formats for nature-based projects and programs. They want transparency around how revenues are distributed, how communities can raise grievances and how developers respond to concerns. Tools such as Beyond Alliance’s Common App are emerging to combat these challenges by prompting developers to disclose such project details. 

An ethical guide for companies

As expectations rise, initiatives such as Beyond Alliance are helping shape what good looks like and setting higher standards for social integrity and buyer responsibility. Alongside this, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Buyer’s Guide offers a practical framework for companies procuring nature-based carbon credits from projects and programs that work equitably with Indigenous peoples and local communities. It’s built on two core principles: do no harm; and deliver benefits.

​​Project developers also play a pivotal role. Their approach to co-design, governance and long-term revenue sharing often determines whether these principles are upheld in practice.

Do no harm: First, companies should look for nature-based carbon projects and programs that demonstrate they have gained free, prior, informed consent from affected communities through dialogue using interpreters when necessary. Companies should engage in transparent, culturally appropriate communications with local people. Nature-based initiatives should also recognize local people’s land and resource rights. In fact, the best projects and programs help to consolidate and enforce these rights.

To ensure no harm, companies should check that nature-based initiatives regularly monitor the social impacts of their work. This means having proper safeguards and grievance mechanisms in place which local people can use to express opinions and raise concerns. It’s also important to submit projects and programs to local oversight institutions that may be aligned with activities on the ground. 

Deliver benefits: The best projects and programs consider local people as active participants rather than beneficiaries of carbon revenue. Companies can look for programs and projects that invest in local capacity building and leadership opportunities. For example, the Brazilian state of Acre just completed widespread consultations that led to the decision to channel 72 percent of the proceeds from one nature-based program to communities. 

Engagement is foundational to success

Engaging Indigenous people, traditional and local communities isn’t a formality; it’s foundational. Without involving the people with the best expertise, nature-based projects will lose out. They simply cannot be as successful.

The good news is that the tools to facilitate inclusion already exist. Now it’s time for companies to use their influence and push for better terms for Indigenous peoples, traditional and local communities.

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HP Inc. is encouraging its third-party sales partners to sell refurbished versions of its personal computers and printers by compensating them at the same rate they would receive for new products.

The initiative was created to support HP Renew Solutions, a business unit formed in November 2023 to expand sales of HP Certified Refurbished technology. These are products returned to HP by commercial customers when leases expire or during technology upgrade cycles, reconditioned with fresh components and offered for resale. 

Effective immediately, any HP sales partner authorized to sell HP products can also represent the secondhand editions. They were previously only sold through HP’s direct sales representatives. 

HP’s third-party sales channel drives approximately 85 percent of the company’s annual revenue, according to past company statements. The company reported $54 billion in sales for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2024.

“Leaving the channel out of this would have been myopic,” said Claudia Contreras, vice president of HP Renew Solutions.

More buyers want secondhand products

HP’s program is similar to one offered by networking gear manufacturer Cisco for its remanufactured equipment. Cisco’s original program has been available for nearly three decades, but Cisco introduced a circularity promotion in January 2024 to make it more lucrative for partners to sell remanufactured gear. Cisco’s indirect sales channel accounts for close to 90 percent of its revenue.

Customer interest in refurbished options covered by HP guarantees about quality — important for erasing a potential stigma against reused computers and information technology — convinced the company to turn HP Renew Solutions into a standalone business initiative with undisclosed revenue goals. 

HP’s pledge is for 75 percent of its product and packaging content, by weight, to come from recycled, renewable or reused materials or components by 2030.

“We want to make sure that we are participating not just in the first life of these products but also in the second life,” Contreras said.

The portfolio of refurbished products available for resale to commercial customers varies depending on the region, she said. 

Certain personal computers are available in France, Spain, U.K. and U.S. One example is a refurbished version of HP’s EliteBook laptop computer that has a carbon footprint that is 60 percent lower than the original edition, she estimated. (The percentage varies depending on the product.) More recently, refurbished printers can be included as part of managed services contracts in the U.S. and European Union.

“If you are a company that is making bold and public claims about reducing emissions, this offers a very measurable way to lower the impact of your IT assets,” Contreras said. 

Sustainability metrics as deal closers

The new program supporting refurbished products is an extension of initiatives HP started offering in 2020 in response to commercial customer requests for more information about the energy consumption and carbon footprint metrics associated with HP’s products.

HP’s ability to offer information about sustainability as part of sales discussions translated into more than $1 billion in sales in fiscal 2020 and 2021. The company didn’t disclose data for 2023, the latest year for which an HP environmental information is available. Its next report is due in several weeks.

HP created the Amplify Impact certification in 2021 for sales partners that use sustainability metrics to close deals. More than half of HP certified partners have completed that training. HP declined to disclose how many partners are part of the overall Amplify program, citing competitive reasons, but past reports put the number around 10,000.

Compensating HP partners equally for new and certified refurbished products allows salespeople to focus on customer needs, said Mary Beth Walker, vice president and head of global partner experience and engagement at HP.

“We made a collective decision that in markets where HP Renew Solutions are available, we would equally incentivize all partners to equip customers working to adopt greater circularity,” she said.

Creating a level playing field was helpful, said Prashant Singh, vice president at HP partner End Point Solutions. “As a solutions integrator, we focus on helping clients get more from their device investments — not just at the point of purchase but throughout the entire lifecycle,” Singh said. “The flexibility and support to sell HP Certified Refurbished devices has been essential for keeping our clients productive even when budgets are tight.” 

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With all due respect to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the death of corporate sustainability has been wildly exaggerated.

In recent months, a steady stream of essays and hot takes have trumpeted a downward spiral of the sustainability era in business. Bloomberg declared, “Big Business Is Abandoning Its Climate Goals” while the Harvard Business Review offered that “Corporate Sustainability Is in Crisis.” A venture capital blog asked, “Is Corporate Sustainability Dead?”

Meanwhile, self-appointed watchdogs and critics on social media weigh in daily with their own bill of particulars: stalled progress, lowered ambition, missed targets, greenwashing, greenhushing, hypocrisy. Pushback and constructive criticism are welcome, of course, but these pundits seem almost giddy and gloating in pointing out the shortcomings they see.

Together, they make a compelling case that corporate sustainability is circling the drain.

Except, it isn’t.

Against the tide

To be sure, there’s a kernel of truth in the headlines. Walmart and Coca-Cola are among several big companies acknowledging they’ll miss key climate emissions targets, while some other firms’ goals have simply “lost their meaning.” Banking giants such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have exited international net-zero finance groups. Anti-ESG backlash, especially in the U.S., remains real and ferocious. Several of the world’s most powerful companies, including some sustainability leaders, are pumping millions into trade associations actively obstructing climate policy.

But to declare corporate sustainability dead — or even dying — is to fundamentally misunderstand both the movement and the moment.

What we’re witnessing is a recalibration — an evolution of terminology, tone and tactics in response to a complex and pugnacious political and economic environment. Sustainability isn’t fading away. It’s simply gotten smarter, quieter, more embedded and, in many respects, more effective.

“There’s more rigor, more skepticism, much better data and a sharper focus on results than there was five or 10 years ago,” noted Jeffrey Hogue, CSO at Levi Strauss & Co, in a recent LinkedIn post. “It’s become clear that real progress requires committed, consistent work that prioritizes impact, addresses the real-world implications of our operations and aligns with long-term business strategies.”

Even so-called “greenhushing” — companies keeping mum about their sustainability efforts to thwart criticism — misses the point. As another chief sustainability officer told me, “We’re talking less, but we’re doing more.” The real work is happening away from the klieg lights of public scrutiny: integrating sustainability into core strategy and focusing on risk management, supply-chain resilience and operational excellence.

A hero’s journey

Why is the doom-loop meme so compelling? As the cognitive linguist George Lakoff tells us, our perspectives are shaped by mental structures — frames — that help us make sense of complexity. The idea that big business is fundamentally about greed, and that sustainability initiatives are essentially a fig leaf, is a comfortable frame that fits with public skepticism about capitalism itself. It’s a deep story, to borrow sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s phrase, about what’s gone wrong in society and who’s to blame.

It’s also a story that’s easy to tell from the cheap seats. Critics from across the political spectrum seem to love tossing brickbats at companies for perceived sustainability missteps, often without acknowledging the sheer scale and difficulty of what’s being attempted: Decarbonize and detoxify supply chains, eliminate plastic waste, create circular material flows — all without affecting profits? That’s a hero’s journey, replete with the requisite dragons: shrinking budgets, shifting regulations, sclerotic bureaucracies and the ever-present specter of blowback.

Doing the hard work has never been harder.

What the data show

Here’s what the headlines don’t say: Most companies are not abandoning climate action. According to PwC’s 2025 State of Decarbonization report, while 16 percent are reducing their commitments, 37 percent are strengthening them. The number of firms setting climate targets is nine times higher than five years ago.

Moreover, the doom-loop meme represents a largely U.S.-centric view. A growing number of Asian businesses are embedding sustainability into core operations, driven by stricter regulations and investor expectations, according to India-based credibl. China plans to introduce carbon footprint accounting rules and standards for key industrial products, according to Reuters. Similarly, Latin American companies are increasingly integrating sustainability into their strategies and operations. 

While the U.S. obsesses over the perceived horror of “woke” corporations, the rest of the world is quietly getting on with the work of building a low-carbon economy. Outside the U.S., ESG might as well stand for Economics, Security and Geopolitics.

Resting in peace

In recent months, some longtime observers have been asking: What parts of the corporate sustainability agenda should we be hospicing?

Yes, hospicing — that’s their word.

The notion that parts of a CSO’s remit should be laid to rest may be unsettling, but it’s worth pondering, Justin Adams, co-founder of the Ostara Collective, a multidisciplinary group seeking to “build a holistic vision for our evolving economies,” told me recently.

“One of the mistakes we have made in the sustainability world is believing either that the system is naturally going to change or that people are motivated to want the type of change that is needed,” said Adams, whose résumé includes stints at BP, the World Economic Forum and The Nature Conservancy. “We’re just doing what we’ve always done for 30 or 40 years, which clearly is not working.”

Voluntary certifications and reporting frameworks that don’t drive real change? Let them go, says Adams. So should anything else that doesn’t contribute to a positive impact.

“What matters now is materiality — focusing on the issues that truly move the needle for both business and society,” he said. What stands to emerge is a more mature, honest and impactful approach.

Progress, not perfection

To Adams’ point, the pace of change is way too slow. Several sectors — chemicals, food and ag, and apparel, among others — seem unwilling or unable to embrace sustainability beyond pilot projects and small-ball initiatives. The systemic conventions undergirding all companies — quarterly reporting, the short shelf life of CEOs, investor expectations of never-ending growth — aren’t exactly going away. 

So, let’s not confuse recalibration with retreat. The forces that sparked corporate sustainability are here to stay and becoming ever more urgent. The real story isn’t about the demise of sustainability but about its messy, necessary evolution. The work is hard, the journey long and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

But the direction of travel is clear — and it isn’t backwards.

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