Green Edge: Unleashing the Power of Green
September 24, 2013

 

Dear Clients, Friends and Colleagues,

 

Fall is finally upon us and this week, Climate Week NYC 2013, we applaud IKEA, the global furniture retailer headquartered in Sweden, for the steps it is taking to achieve its big, hairy, audacious goal of 100% energy independence by 2020. IKEA's Chief Sustainability Officer is in New York this week participating in the Climate Week conversations, along with Virgin's Richard Branson, myself and other assorted climate change solution pioneers.
 
IKEA Walks the Energy Independence Walk
 
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Image: Courtesy of Trevi Group 
Last week IKEA announced that its 359,000 square foot store under construction in Merriam, Kansas, will be its second U.S. store to use a geothermal system for heating and cooling. IKEA has incorporated geothermal systems into 50 of its 340 stores worldwide, including its Denver-area store in Centennial, Colorado, which opened in 2011. 

The Merriam, Kansas, store will incorporate a heat pump system that involves drilling 180 boreholes (six inches in diameter and 600 feet deep) under the parking lot on its 19 acre parcel. Pipes will be placed into the holes, forming "an underground network of loops for circulating 36,000 gallons of heat-transferring liquid connected to 64 forced-air heat pumps to cool and heat the store." 

Explosive Growth Fuels Billions in Savings  


As one of the world's leading retailers with a global growth trajectory buoyed by a 38% increase in sales since 2007, IKEA has committed to invest over $2B in renewable energy resources over the next three years. In addition to its 2020 goal of generating all of its power from renewable resources, IKEA has set an interim goal of 70% for 2015. IKEA is more than halfway there: renewable sources, including 550,000 solar panels, 83 wind turbines, 50 geothermal systems and energy generated from waste wood produced by an IKEA subsidiary bring the total renewable energy equivalent to 51%. And that doesn't even take into account IKEA's investment in 17 wind farms located in seven different countries. 

Although IKEA will not disclose the cost of either of its two U.S. geothermal systems, information previously disclosed by IKEA put the cost of a similar geothermal system constructed in 2009 for a store in Dublin, Ireland, at approximately $2.65M with a projected seven year payback period. That same disclosure indicated that IKEA had invested approximately $66M in the 30 geothermal systems it had constructed to date.

 

In addition to generating renewable energy, IKEA continues to aggressively increase energy efficiency in its built environments. One example is its 100% LED lighting program, which was tested at stores in the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain and a factory in Poland in 2012 and is now being rolled out. According to IKEA, its LED lighting program will reduce annual energy consumption at each store by 450,000 kWh and result in savings of over $125,000 per year per store. Rounding that up to 340 stores means over $42M in potential annual savings from LED lighting alone. Add to that the increases in annual savings as IKEA continues to ramp up its capability to generate renewable energy and the numbers jump into the billions. 
 
Let us help your company employ some of the strategies that IKEA and other energy independence leaders have used to reduce their carbon and costs and improve their bottom lines. You can't afford not to.
 
Warmly,

Ellen Sinreich Signature 
Ellen Sinreich
President

212 317 1131 
 
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