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How the IKEA Foundation fights poverty and climate change

All children deserve to look forward to a bright future. But many children and families face two major threats to that future – poverty and climate change. The IKEA Foundation is a fully independent charitable foundation working to help them tackle both these challenges.

The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy that works to help families afford a better life and protect the planet. They do this by working with partners to identify and solve problems, scale up solutions and change complex systems that contribute to poverty and climate change. Like the retail business, the IKEA Foundation works towards the vision of our founder – to create a better everyday life for the many people. However, they focus on empowering the many people outside the communities in which IKEA typically operates. They dedicate their work to helping children, families and people who have been forcibly displaced in some of the most vulnerable communities around the world.

Both the IKEA Foundation and the IKEA retail business work to create a better everyday life for the many people. 

© IKEA Foundation

How does the IKEA Foundation fight poverty?

The IKEA Foundation is dedicated to improving family livelihoods in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. Together with their partners, they enable families to earn a decent income and lift themselves and their children out of poverty.

They do this by funding programmes that power people’s livelihoods with renewable energy, support planet-positive agriculture and create green enterprise opportunities. For example, their work powers communities in India with renewable energy and transforms degraded landscapes in Kenya into healthy land that can be farmed for generations to come.

They also support refugees and people who have been forced to flee their homes to build sustainable livelihoods and become part of thriving communities. The IKEA Foundation has spent more than 10 years working to change the way the international community supports refugees. They contribute research and practical solutions to an approach where refugees and their host communities are lifted up together.

How does the IKEA Foundation tackle climate change?

Temperatures are rising, causing changes in our climate that threaten every aspect of our lives – from the food we eat to the water we drink to the air we breathe. The scientific evidence is clear: we only have a small window of time in which to drastically cut carbon emissions. We need to act now.

The IKEA Foundation is fighting for a planet that can sustain the many people who live on it. They support programmes that encourage governments, businesses and philanthropic organisations to step up and create change. They also directly fund organisations that are working with renewable energy and regenerative agriculture to reduce emissions and create better livelihoods for children and their families.

In 2021 the IKEA Foundation announced it would provide €1 billion in funding over a five-year period to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. From this fund, $500 million has already been allocated to a new initiative called the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet. This aims to avoid and avert 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, empower 1 billion people with renewable energy and create 150 million green jobs.

© IKEA Foundation

© IKEA Foundation

Where does the IKEA Foundation get its money from?

The IKEA Foundation is proud to share the name, values, and founder of IKEA, while operating independently from the retail business.

The IKEA Foundation receives its funding from INGKA Foundation, the owner of INGKA Group - the largest IKEA retailer. The ownership of INGKA Group gives INGKA Foundation the resources to achieve its charitable purpose.

Profits from INGKA Group are only allowed to go back into the business or be provided to INGKA Foundation. The funding INGKA Foundation provides for the IKEA Foundation originally comes from the dividends it receives from INGKA Group.

In 2021 the IKEA Foundation paid out €283 million in funding to organisations around the world focused on improving livelihoods and fighting climate change. Since 2009, the IKEA Foundation has granted more than €1.6 billion to create a better future for children and their families.

The IKEA Foundation is on a mission

The IKEA Foundation is working to improve the lives of vulnerable children by enabling their families to create sustainable livelihoods, and fight and cope with climate change.

Visit the IKEA Foundation website

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