March 2021: Ingka Group news

• IKEA drops online game to spark conversation about equality in the home on Women’s Day
• Ingka Investments make minority investment in Fluid Truck
• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Female Leadership in Experience Design
• IKEA Foundation is partnering with Purpose and the United Nations to call for a fair global vaccination plan.
• Ingka Investments invests in global addressing system what3words
• Pia Heidenmark Cook featured discussing actions needed for a more sustainable futureIngka Centres enters Canada – acquiring shopping centre in Toronto

IKEA drops online game to spark conversation about equality in the home on  International Women’s Day
For International Women’s Day, IKEA developed a free digital game called FiftyFifty in collaboration with relationship expert Jennie Miller. The game takes couples through 10 questions designed to start honest conversations about everyday equality, while having a bit of fun in the process.

With women still doing up to three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men globally*, FiftyFifty strives to bring better balance in the home at a time when people are spending more time inside than ever before. 

To support the launch of the game and inspire as many people as possible to play, IKEA partnered with Swedish singer, and passionate feminist, Zara Larsson. A short film released sees Larsson officially unveil FiftyFifty and deliver a frank yet empowering message about the importance of tackling inequality in the home.

On International Women’s Day, Zara appeared in in a free virtual gig, using her voice and platform to speak openly about an issue that is close to her heart, while performing songs from her new album ‘Poster Girl’. The concert was streamed on YouTube to fans all over the world.

Ingka Investments make minority investment in Fluid Truck
Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group announced they have made a minority investment in Fluid Truck, an app-based rental solution, offering short-to-medium term vehicle rentals and outsourced fleet management solutions.

Ingka Group has set a goal to become climate positive by 2030, and to achieve this CO2 emissions need to be cut in all stages of the value chain, including home deliveries. To support this, all customer deliveries and services will be done using electric vehicles or other zero-emission solutions by 2025. By investing in Fluid Truck, Ingka Investments supports this ambition, helping them to reach their ambition of fleet electrification. 

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Female Leadership in Experience Design
With the rise of COVID-19, consumers are expecting a seamless shopping experience across a number of touchpoints and devices. It's no secret that technology has been a largely male dominated field, with very few women making it to the top. The Digital Experience Design (DXD) team has managed to change the design game as well as to break stereotypical conventions, with its top management team being largely made-up of women. The team's main objective is to understand, define and shape customer and co-worker digital experiences across touchpoints, whether it's the website, mobile apps, in-store digital experiences, or co-worker digital tools

The team’s first mission was to build a global and diverse team. Today the DXD leadership team is largely made up of powerful females that head different areas of design.

Pia Heidenmark Cook featured in “Conversations for Tomorrow”, discussing actions needed for a more sustainable future
In the first edition of Capgemini’s new quarterly magazine “Conversations for Tomorrow”, Pia Heidenmark Cook, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ingka Group, joins a wide range of experts and leaders to talk about why sustainability means collective action, bolder leadership, and smarter technologies. The theme of the first issue is sustainability, and the magazine offers critical insights to address the major societal and economic challenges of a more sustainable future.

Pia emphasises circularity as a key enabler of becoming climate positive. Ingka Group is committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, by adopting emission targets. Becoming circular helps reduce the environmental footprint in products, raw materials and other parts of the supply chain, responsible for most of the IKEA environmental footprint. By 2030, all IKEA home furnishing products will be made of only renewable and recycled materials.

Ingka Investments invests in global addressing system what3words
Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group has invested close to GBP 12 million in location technology what3words. The investment will be used to launch the company in new international markets while continuing to develop partners within the e-commerce and logistics sector.

what3words has created an innovative solution to the problem of poor and inaccurate addressing by dividing the world into a grid of 3 metre squares and given each square a unique combination of three words – a what3words address. This allows people to specify a very precise location such as a side door or utility entrance, which is hugely valuable for deliveries and last-mile logistics.

With reliable and highly accurate location information, more first-time deliveries are successful, reducing CO2 emissions and vehicles on the road. Pilot tests show what3words addresses for city deliveries can reduce the time spent on the road in the last mile by up to 30%.

Ingka Centres enters Canada – acquiring shopping centre in Toronto
Ingka Centres has acquired Aura Retail Podium in downtown Toronto. The acquisition means that Ingka Centres is entering the Canadian market. The Aura Retail Podium is located at the base of the Aura building, a well-known mixed-use skyscraper in downtown Toronto. The retail podium comprises 12,270 sq. m of gross leasable area across 3-floors. Ingka Centres will redevelop the property into a new retail-led destination where IKEA Canada will open its first downtown store late 2021/early 2022. The IKEA Toronto Downtown Store is set to span approximately 6,148 sq. m of the ground and second floor. The new store comes as Ingka Centres and IKEA Canada move forward with plans to bring IKEA to more people around the world and get closer to where the many people live.

For further information, journalists and media professionals can contact us at press.office@ingka.com or by calling +46 70 993 6376

Ingka Group (Ingka Holding B.V. and its controlled entities) is one of 12 different groups of companies that own and operate IKEA retail under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Ingka Group has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. Ingka Group is a strategic partner in the IKEA franchise system, operating 380 IKEA stores in 32 countries. These IKEA stores had 706 million visits during FY20 and 3.6 billion visits to IKEA.com. Ingka Group operates business under the IKEA vision - to create a better everyday life for the many people by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible can afford it.

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