Take, make, and dispose—for years that has been the developed world’s economic model. This consumption cycle led the World Bank to estimate that the globe was on track to produce 6 million metric tons of solid waste per day by 2025, up from 3.5 million metric tons in 2010.
But there are signs the take-make-dispose paradigm is shifting, and some of the world’s largest companies are helping to drive change through their scale.
At Fortune’s Brainstorm E conference in Carlsbad, Calif. on Monday, the chief sustainability officers of Ikea, Walmart, and Coca-Cola discussed what they’re doing to improve their companies’ and consumers’ environmental footprints. Here are some of the coolest ideas we heard.
Ikea: The furnishings giant has instituted a “save the furniture program” in Belgium. People bring in old furniture, are given a voucher, and Ikea then sells the furniture for the same price that is on that voucher. Chief sustainability officer Steve Howard says that the company will implement a U.S. pilot program next year, which won’t be just for Ikea furniture but an “amnesty for pre-loved furniture.” To encourage people to fix broken furniture rather than throw it away, the company is now shipping a million spare parts to repair products.
Read the full story at http://fortune.com/2016/05/16/ikea-walmart-coca-cola-waste/.