Ikea pushes sustainability in textiles

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 7/16/2010 2:36:05 PM

New York - Ikea is putting a push on sustainability with a program that will impact its home textiles collection.

The multi-national retailer is among the companies participating in the World Wildlife Federation's Cotton Initiative.
WWF is working with farmers, government agencies, buyers and investors in the market chain to impart methods that will reduce that amount of water and chemicals used to grow cotton.

Lisa Davis, responsible for sustainability for Ikea US, said the program acknowledges that while organic cotton is important, most cotton goods are made from non-organic cotton.

"This is looking at how to produce cotton in a better way," she said last week during an Ikea press event to introduce the 2011 catalog.

The first product using cotton from the WWF program will be the Dvala line of sheets. The goal is to eventually use Cotton Initiative fibers in a wider range of products.

Ikea is also working with Lyocell to reduce the overall amount of cotton in its goods, according to Patti Crawford, who handles textiles sales at Ikea US. The project is generating comforters, pillows and some duvets covers with Lyocell blends as well as a pure Lycocell sheet.

In terms of the Ikea customer's attitude toward textiles, Crawford said there is improvement.

"What we saw last year was very utilitarian. We we're seeing now is people coming back for fashion items," she said.