Has Green Building Found its White Knight in Ikea?

Green homes represent one of the most promising markets in green tech today, in my opinion. The modular homes coming from companies such as Michelle Kaufmann Design (see snazzy video here) and Living Homes can be built at close to the same cost as regular homes but save their owners massive amounts of money over time in lower electricity and water bills.

More importantly, they are cool. (see picture of a Living Homes home here. A Kaufmann home is pictured below). They are open, airy and nostalgically modern. If you grew up in Northern California, it’s like living in the birdhouse at the Nut Tree. That’s a stark contrast to most green products. Bioplastic cups pretty much work like plastic cups. Solar panels, once the thrill of putting them up goes away, pretty much just deliver electrons. It doesn’t change your life. Electric cars and green homes are the only two products in green that I know of that give you that “gotta have it” feeling that has animated the PC and consumer electronics market for 30 years.

The problem? It’s a real tough business. You need a factory, deals and relationships with land developers like Shea Homes and Lennar, and lots of employees. Plus, protectable intellectual property is almost nonexistent. A lot of VCs have told me they have shied away from this market for those reasons. (Kaufmann just got some money, though, said sources. Don’t know if that’s public, but if not, there you have it.). VC have shown more interest in building components like drywall that can be sold to any contractor.

Enter Ikea. The Swedish retailing giant said it is going to invest around 50 million Euros in clean technology start ups and start to market clean products, according to a story in Cleantech.com. Ikea execs speculated that they might invest in lights, solar panel companies or water purification systems, etc. But these investments will probably never really fly. Why does Ikea need to invest in an LED lamp company? There ar 75 people in Taiwan or more that will make 10,000 LED lamps for them a month. Ikea can rename them Snarvik or Liikplatt. Solar panels? Easy. Buy some BP panels, call them Zurbis and make technicians from SolarCity get dressed up in blue and yellow outfits. (Side note: naming stuff at Ikea is on my top ten dream jobs list, right below teaching chimps how to ride bikes.)

Ikea, though, builds prefab homes in Europe. It knows the market and the economics of it. And, unlike LEDs and water purification, the number of large, well-oiled partners to work with is relatively small.

Mark my words. This is really what this deal is about. In five years, you could be living in a Schnuuri.