Activists are blasting furniture giant Ikea for its reported plans to buy up forests in Romania that contain valuable resources of wood. In a report for The New Republic, Alexander Sammon examined Ikea’s reliance on Romanian timber, as well as the deforestation that occurs there and the illegal logging that occurs there.
Sweden’s furniture company is known for its environmentally friendly practices. As part of the company’s 2030 initiative to promote responsible management, the company has called for the protection of endangered species and the replanting of trees to offset the effects of logging. They plan to reduce their furniture waste in 2020 as well.
According to the company’s website, it gets most of its wood from ‘Sweden, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and Germany’. But The New Republic reported that Ikea could get up to 10% of its timber from Romania, and that it has become Romania’s ‘largest landowner’ and the world’s ‘largest wood consumer,’ as it has doubled its consumption. Agent Green, a nonprofit organization based in Romania, filed a complaint with the New Republic alleging that Ikea allegedly cleared logged old-growth forests without a permit or environmental impact assessment.
According to a spokesperson for IKEA of Sweden AB, the company does not accept timber that has been illegally logged. A comprehensive due diligence system has been established with multiple safeguards. This includes stringent documentation requirements for the direct suppliers, a team of wood sourcing and forestry specialists who conduct over 200 audits a year, and third-party auditors that monitor the supply chain in high-risk countries. Ikea did not break any rules according to an audit conducted by the Forest Stewardship Council, but Agent Green said that they questioned the credibility of this finding.
This is not Ikea’s first brush with controversy over its wood-procurement practices. An investigation by Earthlight, a London-based environmental group, found that Ikea had likely been using illegally-obtained Russian wood for its children’s furniture for years. The United Nations Environment Programme and Interpol released a joint report in 2012 that found up to 30% of wood traded globally was obtained illegally. Ikea responded to the Earthsight investigation by telling NBC it would ‘no longer accept wood from a number of companies linked to the supplier facing allegations of illegally obtained wood.
Ikea began buying up Romanian forestland in 2015, according to The New Republic. The country has lost up to two-thirds of its virgin forests since 2007, Sammon reported. The New Republic photographed swaths of Ikea-owned forests that had been cleared, often adjacent to protected areas. Insider was told by an Ikea spokesperson that the company has worked ‘with numerous stakeholders’ to improve ‘forest management and sourcing practices in Romania’. Romania faces several challenges related to forestry practices, and Ikea remains committed to using its presence to further improve the situation, a spokesperson told Insider.
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