Our view on cotton
Pillowcases, sofa coverings, towels, curtains and bedsheets – these are just a few of the many products where we use cotton at IKEA. We love cotton because it’s soft, breathable, and versatile. It’s also a renewable material and we use both virgin and recycled fibres in our products. To help our customers feel confident in the cotton we use, we have set strict requirements for our suppliers and the raw material.
Knowing our cotton supply chain
The virgin cotton that we source is grown and harvested in compliance with IWAY, the IKEA Supplier Code of Conduct. IWAY sets clear expectations and ways of working for environmental and social standards for our suppliers, including no forced or child labour. Our traceability requirements also allow us to physically trace the cotton across the IKEA supply chain. As a tool to help us verify compliance with our requirements, we use third-party certification schemes.
Recycled cotton
We define recycled cotton as cotton fibres recovered from hard cotton waste materials such as yarns, fabrics or garments. This can either be pre-consumer or post-consumer materials.
Post-consumer cotton is fibres recovered from used and discarded textile products, such as garments, fabrics or other cotton-based items that have been used by consumers. These materials are collected, sorted and reprocessed for use in new products.
Pre-consumer recycled cotton means fibres recovered from hard manufacturing waste materials, such as offcuts, scraps, and rejected materials generated during yarn, fabric or garment production. These materials are collected before reaching the end consumer and reprocessed for new products.
We currently mainly use pre-consumer sources for our recycled cotton and in the long term, we’re working towards enabling post-consumer cotton at scale. However, getting there requires further technological development, improved sorting and stronger supply chain capabilities. We are committed to partnering on technological development (including advanced sorting and recycling) and investing in long-term collaborations with key industry actors to build capacity.
20 years of cotton partnership with WWF
IKEA is working with WWF on projects in India and Pakistan that, among other things, promote community-led water stewardship, decrease soil erosion and boost biodiversity by integrating trees into cotton crops. This partnership is driven by a shared commitment to protect natural resources.
In 2025, IKEA and WWF celebrated 20 years of partnership in the cotton sector. As we continue our work together, we have now extended our focus to include agriculture as a whole.
