New life through circularity
“The KLIPPAN sofa is an iconic IKEA product. By offering new sofa covers made from recycled materials, we can help customers to renew their sofa and reuse materials.” Said Piotr Jakubiak, Deployment Leader at New Business and Innovation Deployment. “We are happy to work together with MUD Jeans to make the KLIPPAN sofa cover with recycled denim. This simple action will give new life to the sofas and worn jeans.”
How it started
During a podcast on sustainability the Dutch TV Host Harm Edens challenged his guests, Ikea’s Business Development & Transformation Manager Alberic Pater and our CEO Bert van Son, to collaborate in order to drive circular innovation. A match made in circular economy heaven. Short after, the collaboration kickstarted and over the course of almost two years the Klippan cover was thoughtfully developed, tried and tested.
What’s in the cover?
Each new KLIPPAN cover contains 40% post-consumer recycled denim, the equivalent of two pairs of worn-out jeans and 60% certified organic cotton. Compared to making the sofa cover with industry standard denim methods, each cover saves 27,000 litres of water and reduces its carbon footprint by 67 per cent. During the production the fabric is dyed using a Cradle2Cradle certified indigo dye. After stitching innovative techniques such as Ozone and Laser are applied to give the denim its beautiful color and effect. The factory recycles 95% of the water and no toxic chemicals are used in the entire process. Together with IKEA we went through thorough audits to ensure that the top social and environmental standards are met. To ensure the top quality of the product and make sure the denim is fit to be used as furniture textile the cover had to undergo strict tests.
Towards a circular 2030
Ikea is thriving to use only circular materials by 2030. Piotr says: “My belief is that in the near future, customers will be able to bring their discarded IKEA textile products and we at IKEA can give them new life – closing the loop. We will continue to join forces with our partners to test and learn, as we cannot complete this business transformation on our own. That’s why these collaborations are so important to us. Sustainable products should be affordable for everyone, and we want to invite our customers to be part of that journey,”