By Emma Koehn
Ikea operator Ingka Group will back the $2 billion Golden Plains wind farm project near Geelong in Victoria, as the homewares giant sharpens its focus on renewable energy investments.
Ingka is the world’s largest operator of Ikea stores. Its plan to take a 15 per cent stake in the wind farm marks a unique direct investment by a retailer in the clean energy space and will help contribute to Ikea’s emissions reduction targets.
Ikea Australia.
Ikea Australia chief executive Mirja Viinanen said she hoped other Australian companies would follow in investing in clean energy projects. It was time for companies to move beyond the discussion about sustainability issues and start acting, she said.
“I do believe that this is the future and this will be something other companies will be planning as well; [it’s] a great opportunity,” she said.
“I hope in Australia that our customers see that the company is doing something. It’s not only talking.”
Ingka Group is the global operator of Ikea retail stores and its investment arm Ingka Investments has spent more than €3 billion ($4.6 billion) backing clean energy projects globally. Its stake in the Golden Plains project is its first investment in Australia, but the group is on the lookout for more projects in the region as the business works towards hitting carbon emissions reductions goals between now and 2030.
‘I hope in Australia that our customers see that the company is doing something. It’s not only talking.’
Mirja Viinanen, Ikea Australia chief executive
Ikea has a range of reduction targets including transitioning to 100 per cent renewable energy across its value chain by 2025, and halving overall greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms by 2030.
Ingka Group has also promised to be “carbon positive” by 2030, meaning it reduces more greenhouse gas emissions than the company emits, and have net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.
As well as reducing the footprints of its own operations, the path to net-zero emissions will involve tracking the footprints of Ikea’s suppliers globally to reduce and offset emissions. Viinanen said this process was ongoing.
Ingka’s global clean energy investments will contribute to these reduction plans, while giving Ikea the option of buying clean energy from sites such as Golden Plains in the future.
Viinanen said Australia presented compelling long-term investment opportunities for these types of energy projects, and Ingka Group was keen to do more deals in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
“It is, more or less, the perfect country to start to invest in,” she said.
The Golden Plains wind farm is the largest permitted product of its kind. Clean energy business TagEnergy, which is controlled by French investment firm Impala SAS, is the major equity investor in the project and is preparing for the second phase of construction with the original developer, Westwind.
The site is set to be completed in 2025 and will provide energy for more than 750,000 homes.
TagEnergy’s managing partner in Australia, Andrew Riggs, said the clean energy sector needed more investment partners that were not traditional funds focused solely on renewables.
“We’re not going to solve the climate problem with that limited pool of capital; we need capital, finance and other industries,” he said.
“Here we have an example of corporate thought leadership, bringing other capital into renewables.”
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