Ingka Group invests in Chinese plastics recycling firm

Ingka Group’s investment arm Ingka Investments has announced a capital injection in China’s Re-mall, a post-consumer plastics recycling firm.

With the investment, IKEA’s largest retailer aims to support the transition towards a more circular economy and reduce plastic pollution in China – one of the largest plastic markets in the world.

Re-mall – also known as Shanghai Re-mall Environmental Protection New Material Co., Ltd. – uses a proprietary technique to process post-consumer packaging waste and produce transparent recycled polypropylene (“rPP”) for use in new products.

Within China, the firm is known for manufacturing premium-grade, highly transparent recycled polypropylene pellets at scale, and for building closed-loop solutions with their value chain partners. 

Re-mall’s finished materials are used by blue-chip companies in applications such as storage boxes and containers, tableware, toys, cosmetics packaging, and woven textile products. 

Lukas Visser, Head of Circular Investments at Ingka Group, said: “Re-mall’s strong supplier network and partnerships with leading Chinese food delivery service providers are already allowing them to create impact at scale for the local recycling market. By investing in Re-mall, we want to amplify this impact to help address a global plastic waste problem and contribute to the circular economy transition.”

IKEA growth in China

The investment comes just a few days after IKEA opened an online store on Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, with strong sales growth expected in the coming months.

“This investment by Ingka Investments demonstrates our long-term commitment in China. To meet our customers’ needs for generations to come, we have both the responsibility and the opportunity to take a lead in accelerating the circular economy beyond IKEA, and the scale and innovation capabilities here in the Chinese market create significant opportunities for this transformation,” said Pontus Erntell, President & Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA China.

This is the first Chinese investment for Ingka Investments within its €1 billion Circular Investment portfolio, which focuses on building out recycling infrastructure for high-emissions materials.

“We are happy to welcome Ingka Investments as a strategic partner in our mission to accelerate the circular economy in plastics. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in our journey to scale sustainable solutions globally. Together, we aim to transform plastic waste into valuable resources, contributing to a cleaner planet and a more responsible future,” added ZHU Kuan, CEO of Re-mall.

In June, Ingka Group made a similar investment in a Belgian recycling facility.