This is from a long time ago, in 2020 it was about manufacturing a model of children’s furniture wood from the illegal logging in Russia, the largest timber exporter in the world. This is evident from research by Earthsight Ikea is complicit in the felling of four million trees in Siberia. As with Earthsight’s Ukraine-focused study, this wood was certified as ‘legal’ and ‘sustainable’ by the government. Not very reliable Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)to cover up the operation before being sent to an Indonesian manufacturer that supplies furniture to health centers. Ikea from around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. The British NGO has calculated this Every two minutes someone buys a product containing this wood and Ikea spares no effort to supply sufficient raw materials with devastating deforestation and destruction of biodiversity..
Ikea returns to the foregroundthe largest furniture manufacturer in the world, consumes large amounts of wood. Inexpensive, easy to assemble and with designs ready to replicate at home, their furniture has supplied millions of homes for decades. This massive commercial expansion, coupled with consumerism and unstoppable furniture production, requires the Swedish giant to supply large quantities of a product. renewable source, no matter how vulnerable it is madera.
The chain attaches great importance to sustainabilitybut one research journalism has shown that the brand contributes to the destruction of biodiversity in different places in the world.
Kamprad, a great visionary with few scruples
The story of Ikea It is that of a small company that has been able to take advantage of the changes of capitalism to become a giant. And this merit in the market economy is entirely due to Ingvar Kamprad. At just 17 years old, he was one visionary of mass consumption.
In 1943, this young man “began to sell the furniture he bought from local artisans and advertised it through a mail order catalog,” he explains. Sara Kristofferssonprofessor of History and Design at Kostfack University.
Kamprad could see the situation clearly consumer rage who settled in the West from the 1950s onwards. On the outskirts of Stockholm he opened the largest furniture store in the world, revolutionizing the way we buy furniture ever since.
Displacement and deforestation
The policy of Ikea, furniture at affordable prices for every wallet, easy assembly and with custom interior designs to take home”, triumph. But guaranteeing the low prices Kamprad demanded began to become incompatible with the work of the Swedish craftsmen who had until then supplied him with the manufactured furniture.
The negotiations did not come to fruition from then on Ikea He looked at countries such as Finland, Russia or Poland exploited the resources of its forests. “This allowed him to obtain a large quantity of furniture at unbeatable prices,” he says. Johan Stenebowho was an advisor to the founder of Ikea.
Cecilia Soler, professor of Marketing at the University of Gothenburg, says that “if the price is very low, you can be 100% sure that someone or something will pay the price. In this case it is nature.” As demand continued to increase, Kamprad pivoted his business: contract manufacturing of its furniture to dozens of countries that, according to the company, always use responsibly exploited forests.
Ikea is not as sustainable as it says
A team of French journalists has been following the production chain for more than a year Ikea in a extensive international research. It reveals the practices that the Swedish chain has carried out from its inception to this day to supply the wood necessary for the manufacture of its furniture. According to Stenebo it is In the 1990s, illegally harvested wood was used to supply the brand’s stores. Ikea He denies it, but he didn’t let journalists see it with their own eyes; they simply refused to open the door for them.
The investigation shows that the Swedish giant was involved in the controversial felling of one of the four in 2011 pristine forests of Russia and in 2020, the brand’s suppliers were accused of speak primeval forests of Ukraine making chairs and dining tables. “Ikea He tries to give the impression that he cares about the environment, but that is a lieStenebo said.
Ikea’s next unsustainable strategy: buying forests
It is estimated that Ikea consumes about 1% of the wood harvested in the worldthe equivalent of a tree every two seconds. “A monster that devours enormous amounts of wood”, emphasizes Kamprad’s former advisor.
The study also shows that in order to obtain the raw materials the country needs for its colossal commercial expansion, Ikea now buys its own forests and already owns more than 280,000 hectares around the world. There are 50,000 of them in Romania. The biologist and chairman of the ONG agent Green, Gabriel Peacock, fights against the destruction of biodiversity in his country by Ikea and its suppliers.
This environmental organization confirmed this in 2021 Ikea is destroying all its forests causing the soil to erode terribly. “It is important to warn as many consumers as possible so that they know what it really does. Ikea‘ Paun shouts. It denounces that one of its suppliers in Romania “accepts wood from national parks and primeval forests.” The documentary also points out that this is almost the case in this country 20 million cubic meters of wood illegal.
Private forests, the acquisition of timber from plantations of fast-growing trees that erode and destroy soils and native forests, are some of the practices that seriously damage biodiversity and that Ikea has been carrying out for 81 years to continue its successful business. One of the trading chains preferred by consumers who do not know the reality of non-sustainable Ikea.