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Interview: Steve Howard, CSO, IKEA Talks Textiles
TriplePundit is reporting live from the Fortune Brainstorm Green 2013 conference in Laguna Niguel, CA. Follow along on this page for ongoing video interviews with sustainability thought leaders, corporate change agents and entrepreneurs who are leading the way to a more sustainable future.
I got to know to IKEA's CSO Steve Howard last year at BSR. We talked quite in depth about IKEA's 3-fold sustainability philosophy, People Planet Positive. Today I had a chance to catch up and get into some specifics on one of the most intensive parts of IKEA's supply chain: Textiles.
IKEA is a major producer of textiles. Think sofa covers, chairs, etc. The process of creating them is both water and energy intensive - especially in the dyeing process. To reduce this problem, IKEA's Greentech venture arm, along with Nike, has invested in a startup called Dyecoo. Dyecoo has developed a system to dye textiles using supercritical carbon dioxide - completely eliminating water from the process. There's a technical PDF here that explains how this works. In the interview below, Steve tells me more about the details and how the project came to be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHzan7t8ACc
Nick Aster is the founder of TriplePundit. Prior to launching 3p, Nick worked for Mother Jones magazine, successfully re-launching the magazine's online presence. He worked for TreeHugger.com, managing the technical side of the publication for 3 years, and has also been an active consultant for individuals and companies entering the world of micro-publishing. He also worked for Gawker Media and Moreover Technologies in the early days of blogging. Nick holds an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio School of Management and graduated with a BA in History from Washington University in St. Louis.
