By selling affordable assemble-yourself furniture on mass scale, Ikea bears some responsibility for today's throw-away culture, where products can easily be chucked out and replaced with something new. But these days the company is leading the way on tackling environmental challenges. "Becoming truly circular means meeting people's changing lifestyles, prolonging the life of products and materials and using resources in a smarter way," Ikea Sustainability Manager Lena Pripp-Kovac said in the statement. "To make this a reality, we will design all products from the very beginning to be re-purposed, repaired, reused, resold and recycled." As part of its latest push, Ikea will remove all single-use plastic products from the Ikea range globally by 2020 and increase the proportion of plant-based choices in its food offering. The largest Ikea franchisee, with 363 stores in 29 markets, also plans to achieve zero-emissions home deliveries and expand its home solar-energy solutions offering to all its current markets by 2025.