We’ve come a long way since Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943. IKEA has become one of the most well-known home furnishing brands in the world, creating a better everyday life for the many people.
IKEA
“Together with partners and customers, we’re designing the home of the future where health, sustainability, and wellbeing are central. A home for the many, not least those with less to spend.”
– Fredrik Håkansson, Area manager IKEA Sweden
Why are you choosing to be an H22 partner?
It provides us with a unique opportunity to collaborate with a city and innovative partners in testing, exploring, and presenting concrete solutions, and also to develop exciting ideas and initiatives together.
In autumn 2019, IKEA announced its participation and commitment in H22 as a partner and co-creator. We will use our global expertise within home furnishing, our “smart home” focus, and our climate and sustainability-oriented food concept to create amazing experiences during H22. It’s worth mentioning that IKEA was also a principal partner for the H99 expo in Helsingborg, with a lot of positive outcomes and experiences.
In what way will your involvement contribute to the development of Helsingborg and other cities?
We want to share our knowledge and promote engagement in the areas of sustainability and circularity. At the same time, we aim to be attentive to real needs and maintain an open dialogue so we can learn and thereby support the development of new behaviours, with the individual as the starting point. H22’s theme, “The making of a smarter city”, is linked to urban development that positively impacts people, their home and how they live their life. These are areas that are perfectly aligned with IKEA’s continuous focus; home life, people, and our everyday – today and tomorrow. We want to create a better and smarter place to live. We’ll be inviting individuals, companies, and organisations to join us in creating better and more value-for-money solutions for people, society, and the planet, ensuring a healthier and more sustainable life.
What does a smarter city mean to you?
For us, a smarter city is a city that creates the conditions for better living environments, where resources are used efficiently and greater consideration is shown to the needs of the people and planet. Digitisation and sustainability are two keywords. In a smarter city, we certainly see more meeting places and greater social engagement, and solutions that are community-created and strengthen relations between multiple actors – businesses, the city, and the people.
When building the cities of tomorrow, what new forms of cooperation do you think we need?
Being at the forefront and doing things that no-one has done before requires collaboration and sharing one’s expertise in different areas. Togetherness is essential, and for H22 we’ll need to find new forms of cooperation that are perhaps entirely new to us. What these may be remains to be seen. We will try to reach out to as many relevant actors as possible. We want to aim high and really elevate the enthusiasm behind this project so that, together with new and existing customers and partners, we can create an impact by ensuring we address subjects that are relevant to how we want to live our lives, now and in the future.
