Our view on palm oil

An important industry

IKEA believes that, when grown responsibly, palm oil can be a sustainable raw material. It is one of the most productive and high-yielding vegetable oils available, and the production and farming of palm oil can have a positive impact on both families and communities.

Historically, palm oil production has often been associated with environmental problems such as deforestation and biodiversity loss. For many years, IKEA has therefore been involved in promoting and developing sustainable palm oil sourcing practices within the framework of RSPO.

IKEA has placed sustainable, deforestation-free palm oil at the top of our business agenda, by making and following through on public commitments to embed sustainable palm oil in our supply chains, as well as investing time and resources beyond our own supply chain to support a responsible industry.

IKEA promotes a collaborative approach to ensure the greatest positive impact. We believe that RSPO certification is currently the best platform available to achieve sector level change in the palm oil industry.

Strengthened requirements

In recent years, there has been several important movements to strengthen the RSPO criteria such as inclusion of the issue of deforestation, as well as planting on peat. This is in line with the criteria that IKEA had earlier, going beyond the previous RSPO requirements. All new palm oil developments shall be on land where biodiversity and natural vegetation are already highly degraded; and no new development should happen on peat, regardless of depth. Peat wetlands are important carbon stores with high biodiversity value.

IKEA has worked together with the organisation ProForest to analyse the risks in the palm oil supply chain which includes social assessment of policies (e.g., concerning migrant workers, responsible recruitment, bonded labour, and smallholder policies) and to develop more efficient methods to address deforestation and peat risk. By the end of 2020, we mapped our palm oil supply chain for candles down to mills and plantation level. In 2019-2020, we also visited mills and plantations in Asia and Latin America to understand better the social and environmental issues associated with palm oil production.

Facts

• IKEA uses approximately 25,000 tonnes of palm oil annually. About 90% of the total volume is used in home furnishing products, mainly in candles. Another 10% is used as a food ingredient. The Palm oil that IKEA uses is mainly sourced from Malaysia and Indonesia.
• Since 2015, 100% of the palm oil used in our home furnishing products such as candles is certified sustainable palm oil from segregated RSPO sources. In total we use more than 99% palm oil from more sustainable sources. The remaining gap is connected to IKEA food offer. We will continuously work on to reach our goal. Our goal is 100%.
• The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a multi-stakeholder organisation whose mission is to make sustainable palm oil the norm by advancing the production, procurement, finance, and use of sustainable palm oil products. IKEA is an active member of RSPO.
• We are working to achieve the 100% certified segregated palm oil goal. However, when there is still a gap to it, we buy RSPO Credits for the volume not secured as segregated. Buying credits supports sustainable palm oil production at the plantation level.
• In 2021, IKEA was ranked as of one the top brands in the global WWF Palm Oil Scorecard, acknowledging the effort of companies securing responsible sourcing of sustainable palm oil and has been mentioned as a good example in the WWF Palm oil scorecard report 2021.