With demand for home delivery increasing around the world, air and noise pollution in our cities is a growing concern. At the same time, Ingka Group plans to make their customer’s shopping experience as convenient as possible. Hence, the group has announced to commit to a zero-emission home delivery system in all markets by 2025.
Ingka wants its home delivery service to meet customers’ expectations on accessibility and convenience in a sustainable way. “We need to find new ways to be part of the solution, not the problem,” says Angela Hultberg, Sustainable Mobility leader, Ingka Group. We are already seeing low-emission zones, road tolls for fossil fuel vehicles and diesel bans, as well as incentive programmes for zero-emission vehicles. So switching to zero-emission home deliveries is crucial for our business.
While there are some obstacles on the road towards electromobility – cost, infrastructure, and availability of vehicles among them – Angela says the technology available today is good enough to start the transformation to a more sustainable way of delivering goods.
“People’s expectations are changing. We are no longer prepared to wait a week or two for the things we order, and because we are ordering online that means smaller loads and more vehicles on the roads. But if we double or triple deliveries, transport emissions will increase accordingly. We are faced with the risk of becoming a major polluter in our cities and that is not who we are as a company,” Angela says.

Full speed ahead

In June 2018, Ingka set out some ambitious targets, one of them being to secure 100% zero-emission home deliveries in all markets by 2025.
The company is already making progress. They have deployed electric vehicles in Australia, China, France, and India to name a few, and more zero-emission vehicles are on the way in many markets. However, there is a lot to be done and will require strong collaboration to make it happen – both internally and externally.
“We can only do this together with our partners,” says Marcus Baumgartner, Customer Fulfilment Manager, Ingka Group. “It will require all of us – within our company, transport companies, manufacturers, energy companies, and others – to work together to find new solutions. And not just with existing partners, but new partners as well, such as new platforms for sharing vehicles and infrastructure, start-ups of different kinds, charging experts, everyone passionate about making last-mile delivery better for both people and the planet. This is not as simple as replacing a combustion engine truck with an electric truck, we need to find new ways of working, too. Zero-emission deliveries are an essential part of our transformation – and I’m excited to be along for the ride!”
So are we to receive our next sustainably delivered furniture from IKEA!