IKEA Plants Roots in Brazil as COP 30 Kicks Off

For years, IKEA avoided Brazil. High import taxes, complex logistics, and bureaucracy made the country a retail nightmare.

Two Emerging Markets Today stories — “No IKEA in Brazil” and “Why Brazil Still Is a No-Go for IKEA” — explained why the Swedish giant stayed away while expanding across Mexico, Chile, and Colombia.

That hasn’t changed. There are still no IKEA stores in Brazil. But the company has finally put money into the country — not for furniture, but for forests.

Inter IKEA Group is investing €100 million in a forest-based carbon-removal project in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest biome. Around 4,000 hectares of degraded pastureland in Paraná and Santa Catarina will be restored with a mix of native species and FSC-certified pine plantations. The project is developed with BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group, one of Latin America’s largest sustainable asset managers.

The move aligns with new EU climate-reporting rules pushing companies to prove measurable carbon-removal results. Brazil, with vast degraded land and biodiversity potential, offers a natural testing ground for these investments.

For IKEA, this is a low-risk way to engage with Brazil without facing its costly retail system. For Brazil, it shows how nature is turning into an economic asset.

A growing local ecosystem of banks, asset managers, and verification startups is helping scale forest-restoration projects like this. As Brazil prepares to launch a regulated carbon market, these efforts could become a new export industry — one based on carbon removal rather than commodities.

IKEA still won’t sell a Billy shelf in São Paulo. But it finally has something growing in Brazilian soil.

Meanwhile in Belém, COP30 is happening.

The timing of IKEA’s forest investment couldn’t be more symbolic.

Yesterday, COP 30 opened in Belém, deep in the Amazon—the first climate summit ever hosted in the rainforest region.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva used the stage to warn that “Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years.” He called this meeting the “COP of truth” — the moment for the world to decide whether this century will be defined by climate catastrophe or by reconstruction.

He also urged wealthier nations to deliver the long-promised US $1.3 trillion in climate finance, reminding delegates that “we need a roadmap to undo deforestation, overcome fossil fuels and mobilise the resources ...