IKEA has some pretty ambitious goals when it comes to sustainability. The furniture and home goods chain has a plan to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2025 and has said the company will be climate positive by 2030.
Jennifer Keesson, IKEA's U.S. sustainability manager, said the company's goals aim to protect both the planet and people.
"Our overall goal is to become climate positive and circular by 2030 and a huge key aspect to that is investing in renewable energy such as wind and solar," she told Cheddar.
Ninety percent of IKEA's U.S. locations have already installed solar panels on the roofs of stores and will expand that program to cover its parking lots. According to Keesson, investments into solar panels are already returning profits for the company by lowering operational costs.
Beyond its own operations, IKEA said it has also taken steps that will benefit communities across the U.S. after investing in solar parks and wind farms in Utah, Illinois, and Texas.
While IKEA has received requests from customers to prioritize sustainability, the company said its commitment to sustainability was born from simply wanting to contribute to creating a safer, more healthy planet.
"We are working to continuously communicate and inspire our customers to be able to also live a healthier and more sustainable life," Keesson said.
"We're not doing it necessarily just because we know our customers are wanting it. We do this because we know it's the right thing to do. We believe it's good business to be a good business."
During the interview conducted during Women's History Month, Keesson said IKEA "sees equality as the heart of human rights" and is intentional in its hiring practices.
"If you look at our U.S. country management, for example, 50 percent of the leadership roles are held by women, and looking nationally, 48 percent of our co-workers identify as female in the U.S.," she said.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
