IKEA scales up social business collaborations by adding new impactful strategic partners
December 10, 2021 – IKEA is expanding its collaboration with social entrepreneurs by adding three new large-scale partners in Southeast Asia. The new partners will generate jobs for marginalized groups and women in vulnerable communities as well as widen the IKEA offer of products made from sustainable materials such as natural fibers and waste items.
“We want to be a force for positive change in society and make a long-lasting impact, locally and globally. By expanding the partnerships with large-scale social businesses, we reach people furthest away from the labor market and at the same time we can inspire other brands and suppliers”, says Christina Niemelä Ström Sustainability Manager IKEA Supply.
To create more working opportunities for marginalized groups in South and Southeast Asia, IKEA has decided to add three new social business partners: Classical in Bangladesh, SAITEX in Vietnam and Spun in India. The new partners will contribute to a more diversified range in materials and techniques and make it faster to scale-up the production with both products and entire collections.
“Initiated in 2012, IKEA social entrepreneurship has been collaborating with social businesses that honor unique skills and competencies and create decent work for people who need it most. These partnerships have grown steadily ever since, and IKEA is now joining hands with three new partners, located in Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh. In total, we have partnered with ten social businesses producing products for IKEA”, says Lena Sörmon, Business Leader Social Entrepreneurship.
The new partners are already well-established manufacturers today and can easily scale up their production capacity. With the new partners on board, IKEA is broadening its offerings in stores and online, with more products responsibly produced in a sustainable industrial environment in textiles, jute, and other locally produced materials. The first collections will be released in June 2022.
“A small enterprise cannot change the world, but you can put your drop into the ocean. And every drop counts. Together we can create a future formula for success that potentially could be replicated in other factories. Imagine what a huge, massive dent we together would create on this matter” says Sanjeev Bahl, the founder, and CEO of Saitex and Rekut
The new strategic partners are:
Saitex, Vietnam
Vietnamese denim manufacturer, Saitex, is known worldwide for being revolutionary in its approach to business. Saitex is a social business with a highly efficient industrialized factory setup - showing that social enterprises do not need to be small or in the handicraft sector. Saitex has a goal to have 20% of their co-workers being persons with disabilities involved in production for IKEA by 2025. Saitex is in Vietnam and operates four modern facilities in Dong Nai, along with a new textile mill for cotton manufacturing. They also have one facility under development in Los Angeles, USA.
Classical, Bangladesh
Classical Handmade Products (CHP) is a social business that makes sustainable, handwoven home furnishing products. In Classical’s factories in the rural areas of Bangladesh, they create sustainable and handwoven products such as storage baskets, placemats, bags, pouffes, and rugs from recycled textile waste or cotton from better sources. With four factories stretched across the rural areas in north of Bangladesh, CHP provides job opportunities where work is rare. This means that employees can stay with their families, in their homes, but still find jobs, balancing the problems that come with urbanization.
Spun, India
Spun is a social business that makes skillfully crafted, one-of-a-kind products based on textile waste. Spun was founded by Welspun Textile Group in India, one of the world’s leading home textiles manufacturers. Spun is a social business that empowers women by producing skillfully crafted, sustainably produced textile products.
Read more about how IKEA is working with social entrepreneurs and Fair& Equal on the website About IKEA:
In addition to the Social Entrepreneurs initiative, several local social entrepreneurs partner up with IKEA retail markets, providing services and products upcycled from IKEA Textile waste and local food products.
Since 2019, IKEA has also been supporting social enterprises worldwide through accelerator programs that are not directly related to the IKEA business. The ambition is to expand ways of supporting social enterprises to scale up their impact through grants, loans, IKEA co-worker mentorship, business development, and more; testing, piloting and finding new ways of creating lasting change.