In recent years, business has been increasingly viewed as a major cause of social problems. According to what we learned in class, a big reason behind such criticism is that businesses had remained in an out-dated approach to create value preposition – blindly focusing on the short-term financial goals while ignoring the broader influences that would determine its long-term benefits. In order to address this issue, businesses have to realize that anything gained today at the expenses of the future is not encouraged.  On Nov.15th, 2013, Ikea Canada announced its purchase of a 46-megawatt wind farm in the southwest Alberta community. This wind farm  that is expected to generate 161 gigawatt hours (GWh), which is twice as much as Ikea”s annual consumption, can for sure make Ikea self-sufficient without exhausting nature’s resources.

“The development of renewable energy has been and will continue to be important to a sustainable future for Alberta,” said Ken Hughes, Alberta’s energy minister, in the Ikea release. What Ikea did excellently illustrated the concept of sustainability. Ikea is demonstrating its commitment to the energy footprint. Truly, the capitalist system is under siege; the idea of sustainability is emerging.

Reference:

http://lethbridgeherald.com/news/local-news/2013/11/ikea-purchases-area-wind-farm/