IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed
goodnewsnetwork.org
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https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1104260/ikea-the-bi...
At the time of this article (2019), they owned 66,000 acres of forest in the country.
IKEA is the largest private forester but most of Lithuania's forests are owned by the state [0] and overseen by various state bodies, some of whom operate them as commercial concerns including, almost certainly, selling timber to IKEA.
[1] https://www.nwtf.org/conservation/article/who-owns-forests-w...
That's a strange way to put it.
More obviously, 1 acre ~= 0.4 hectares or ~4000 m²
Alternatively, 1 hectare ~= 2.5 acres
There are 50,000 and 60,000 acre tracts owned by separate logging companies near me, and that’s a small part of one county in northern California.
Point being that 10,000 acres isn’t actually as much land as it sounds like, when it comes to forest land.
However, I don't understand how it is any kind of signal of virtue.
Would it be virtuous to buy productive farm land and take it out of circulation?
How is forest land any different?
In a previous life, it would be broadly correct to say that I worked in the forest industry. My body still hurts when I think about it.
I worked for wood lot owners, felling trees, trimming off the branches, sectioning the logs, splitting the wood and then stacking it to be sold by the cord. These woodlots had been in operation for over 150 years. Same land, different trees. They still operate now.
I also worked as a tree planter, hired by small contractors working for 'big forest'. Us tree planters went in after the heavy equipment had ripped out the trees, tearing the land to shreds in the process. It felt like what ground would have been like after a B-52 strike, an eerie hell scape, but with an explosion of small plants and flowers with new access to the sun, deer and other wildlife roaming free, wondering at the strange human interloper. Sometimes wolves and bears, at which point it felt rather lonely, me with a Swiss Army knife (mostly for the fork) and my nearest crew mate being well outside shouting distance.
The churned up land we were planting had been pulp forest itself for over a hundred years. As I planted, others were taking soil and water samples. To the forest company, the forest was a long term asset and that it thrived was in their interest.
I didn't think about it much then, but others long dead had planted that ground before me. Those foot long trees I planted have long been harvested and new trees planted in their place.
Trees are like wheat, or corn, or quinoa. Except instead of being a once a year crop, trees are once every twenty five years or so.
Otherwise, what's the difference?
Kind of irrelevant to the article which you're commenting on though because they're not buying productive forest land to take it out of production, they're buying productive forest land to continue managing and harvesting it, rather to keep it from being rezoned and developed.
If this land was used for timber, it would reduce biodiversity in Georgia. That would unquestionably be a bad outcome for the environment. Deforestation and a reduction in biodiversity is a major problem the world faces, and it impacts much more than just the trees and plants - much of wildlife like animals, insects, and fish are losing their natural habitat and being driven extinct as a result of this practice.
You can hype up timber forestry tactics all you want, but what Ikea has done is a good thing for the world, no matter how disingenuous they might be due to their products consuming large amounts of timber for furniture.
Not that anyone is saying this directly, but I disagree with the argument that good, productive land left fallow is better than good productive land that is producing.
My brother makes a living and feeds his family based on his wood lot. Traces of original settlers from nearly two hundred years ago are found throughout the forest. Which is to say, it is pretty obvious now that it was not suited for farming.
But as forest, it is wonderful. There are at least six species of viable commercial trees at scale. Maple, oak, cedar, black cherry, pine. Most original species, or those introduced by the original indigenous people or the first settlers. The crab apple trees pop up in strange places.
My brother has a government approved forestry management plan that takes from the forest each year far, far less than what the forest produces. The forest will remain diverse and support a family well, indefinitely.
The trees are coming out in a managed way that is creating trails, with clear evidence that wildlife is making good use of the trails. Across the forest, he has installed a wide assortment of habitat for species at risk, birds, bats and others, several of which had not been seen in the area for generations - and they are being used! Under the managed forest, wildlife is returning in which there is no evidence had been there for at least two generations. This wildlife is moving into the adjacent conservation authority land, not the other way around.
If this was not an owned and managed forest, this would be happening at a much slower rate.
If I had to compare that against a plan that left the land alone, I'd tilt my hand to the one that actually supported people, in harmony with nature.
I'm also ignoring any of the chemicals that farms use on the land, but it is something to also consider.
"IKEA’s goal is to purchase wood which is 100 per cent FSC-certified from these countries. At the same time there are many indications that forests with high conservation values are being logged by FSC-certified companies. FSC-certification is far from a guarantee for socially- and environmentally friendly forestry and FSC has received serious criticism from many environmental organizations, both in Sweden and internationally. Several environmental organizations have left FSC in protest. " [2]
So practically, you have a situation where IKEA acts on some shady rules established by this FCS that are unreliable. Moreover, countries with corrupt officials will eventually end up in prison but too late, before the harm is done. Generally, if as a Romanian I go outside to protest against IKEA and corrupt politicians exploiting the Carpathians, I'm told that I don't respect private property and that IKEA acts according to the laws of that country (created by corrupt policians with shady lobbies), in the end IKEA becomes the victim.
[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ikea-buys-83000-acre-fore... [2] http://skyddaskogen.se/en/news/4852-ikea-s-forest-in-romania...
Majority never will, see Navalni exposing theft after theft and ending up in jail himself.
Shouldn't they start fixing the world there?
The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive, or (somewhat ironically) unfinished.
All this being said, if you do have the money to spare, spending a bit on quality or better labor practices is good. For example, I bought my bed frame from a company in the UK[1], and was quite happy with the finished product (despite some unfortunate luck with a part of the frame, which I put down to the fact that I ordered during the holidays).
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_wood [1] https://www.getlaidbeds.com/
It's also super heavy, which I personally hate. Annoying to move in, move out, move around.
Happy to shed some further insight into the world of wood. You are indeed right about engineered wood being easy to shape & produce. The main driver really is all about cost. The reason IKEA's furniture is so cheap is down to how they've designed it which is also purely automated. Their design process will start with "how cheap can we possibly make this whilst having a structural integrity that will be accepted as satisfactory". Which essentially means, it won't last forever, but long enough for a few years. Which we all know and accept, myself included. You could say they are not environmentaly friendly in this regard, however, that's certainly not fair given their excellent sustainability efforts in other areas, such as aiming to be climate positive by 2030 and having a million solar panels on their store roofs.
"Engineered" wood is both high & low quality product, depending on the use. A glue-laminated beam can be as strong as steel in buildings. Composite cladding on facades of buildings can last for a centuries (tbc as we've not had time to see it degrade yet). But then there's the cheap end of laminated, fibre board, OSB, MDF cardboard filled, etc, which is mimicking wood but is far from it. A simple knock or exposure to moisture will ruin it's aesthetic and structure. There's many different uses for different situations.
So engineered wood can be both expensive and cheap depending on how it's made. It's often made from the recycling of wood or sawdust from other timber processing.
So then we have solid natural wood. There's a good reason it lasts for a long time and that's simply because tree's themselves have evolved to stand tall and strong. There's many types of softwoods and hardwoods which I won't go into. But the additional problem with producing at IKEA scale is not only is it more expensive, there is also the natural element of knots, splits, cupping, etc which deform the wood. We might lose 20% (waste factor) of the wood we buy (as we only make beds with 100% solid wood) because it's simply unusable. Even when the wood meets the structural criteria, it can also visually be very different between the same species because of whatever natural environmental influencers happened to that tree. So the whole process of using solid wood is much more challenging, expensive and time consuming to ensure the quality of the product is consistent. The "consistency" is also key for IKEA. However, the beauty and eco-benefits of natural wood are well worth, as well it lasting almost forever. So it's worth the investment for the long term.
Hope that helps. Jonny
(Thanks for your order btw)
> And then it it all ends it can became firewood, which ikea furniture can't.
Of course it can. You wouldn't burn it in a fireplace, but then fireplace is very inefficent way to burn things anyway. If you burn it in a trash burning facilities like they have in Sweden, you get the most energy out of it, you can heat local homes with waste heat in winter, and it creates less pollution (fire places are being banned in dense urban areas where I'm from). It's a fairly good solution for the seasonal energy demand in northern areas.
I personally think IKEAs approach is realistically the most sustainable, but they could improve it by improving the recycling/reuse of the wood fibers in their products.
I've used and refurbished old solid wood furniture myself. It's a luxury IMO. There's not that much of it to go around. It doesn't scale. It's not a solution to the worlds problem.
I also think the quality issues of IKEA furniture is exaggerated. I have a cheap TV table I bought as a student 15 years ago. It has been moved around several times. Seen a lot of abuse. I didn't really have a use for it in our new home so I've used it as a tool table while renovating. It still looks fine. A tiny bit bent, but still good. Can probably give it to another student to use.
If you want to say that buying long-lasting furniture is significantly better, I think you need to point to a study showing how many resources each approach uses, and the average life-span in the real-world. It's far from obvious that solid furniture is better.
Obviously most people buy the cheap stuff, but that's the case of any low/medium end furniture chain really
For example, my most recent purchase from Ikea was one year ago, when I bought a couple of tables made of steel, on which I keep some E-ATX computer cases.
Those steel tables look like they should last more than a human lifetime.
Ikea used to be well made and decent quality 20 years ago. It all went downhill from there and now most of their furniture gets damaged by just looking at it.
I'd gladly invite to my study, which is decorated using IKEA Galant (office) furniture. Every item in the set is high density wood composite and tables are built upon steel structures. They would outlast my children easily if they're not abused on purpose.
Or my Kitchen, which is again built by IKEA with high density composite and its workmanship made a good carpenter jealous.
If you want top of the line items in a category, look for "Stockholm" series.
And if water gets in and doesn't get removed immediately you're in for a world of excitement.
Given that kitchens are remodeled every 7-10 years "on average" paying for solid wood/plywood might not be worth it. But there's a reason commercial kitchens are stainless steel.
Looking at the wood, I suspect it's spruce or pine, with visible joins in the shelving uprights, as well as in the shelves themselves.
In terms of longevity, I don't see that much of a difference. They both require basic care and maintenance to keep in one piece.
People throw away furniture, regardless of who/how its made. Thats the issue we need to tackle.
But is it a sustainability problem? No. In fact if I can recycle wood destined for the furnace into engineered wood, it’s better. If I can recycle engineered wood to become engineered wood again, it’s better.
The other benefit of real wood you mention (restoring and finish) happens less in the western world. Here they dump and move on. Sadly.
Anyway, stop buying their $5 tables and get something a bit more sturdy.
Most people grossly underestimate how wild and pretty much lawless inland rain-forest regions are in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. There are small pockets of settlements everywhere but except for Manaus there is very sparse infrastructure, Police will take days to get somewhere by boat, Healthcare deep in the forest is pretty much a death sentence if you happen to need urgent critical care. You have people that have never been registered with social security, etc.
My point is that having a piece of paper saying that a specific rosewood tree belongs to IKEA or <NGO> would mean nothing, by the time you try to enforce this, the tree would have been fellen, cut, and shipped on a boat to the highest bidder.
If you want actual change in the region you need to develop the local economy with jobs that allow these people to be productive in a way that is somehow more profitable than the existing illegal activities. But the practicalities of this are much harder to implement then simply blank buying forest land.
That could be true, but only holds for one tree (or a small number of trees). The problem starts when people build a business around trees. By the time their businesses are fully operational you can enforce laws. And this makes it unattractive to even start in this line of business.
Even assuming good faith from Brazilian law enforcement/military the remoteness and shear size of the rain forest makes it a huge challenge to enforce any rule of Law.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145988/tracking-ama...
> A (...) satellite-based system, DETER, went into operation in 2004 (...)
> “DETER completely changed the way rangers went about enforcement work,” said Rajão. Rather than doing random patrols and checking for permits, rangers would send squads of enforcement officers — with satellite images in hand — to investigate areas of recent, suspicious activity. That made it much easier to remove or apprehend equipment. The word spread among deforesters. The existence of DETER meant that environmental authorities would likely notice if large tracts of land were cleared, and fines and agents would follow soon enough.
The only challenge I see is that the folks running the saws and the skidders aren't the ones profiting from the operation. So maybe you take some extra precautions to avoid killing the crew, but destroying the equipment seems like a perfectly acceptable use of resources.
References:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-biopiracy/brazil-t...
https://www.dw.com/en/wood-laundering-brings-illegal-amazon-...
Reference:
https://twitter.com/emmanuelmacron/status/116461700896252723...
There's a similar problem with your idea. You could buy a stretch of land in Brazil and bask in the glow of taking it off the market. But the problem you perceive with overuse of the Brazilian rainforest wouldn't be solved; that land was mostly not on the market anyway. How would you stop farmers from encroaching on your land? A "No Trespassing" sign won't do the job.
Buying land to prevent development will work better in the US, mostly because there's no one in the US who lives off the land. You can't stop small farmers from moving on to your unsupervised land. But you can easily stop giant logging or mining companies from doing it.
A bit more than 300$ went into Kiva donations (you can choose for every loan, to cover administrative costs). 20$ went to currency losses. 80$ went to default losses.
The default losses are 10% of what I put in, or 1.6% of the total amount lent. And I explicitly chose a few loans that were explicitly marked as high-default-risk, because of the social situation of the recipients or due to the political/economic situation in the region.
I cannot confirm that my money dried up in default losses. I still think it's quite a good model (but I haven't followed economic research about microloans in the last few years).
Edit: I grew up in the amazon region, parents worked in an NGO. Giving people gifts/donations is worthless to most, since something gifted feels like it has no value. If you build a water well for free, it will be broken in a few months to years. If you make the village pay a part of the costs on the other hand, and if they must help building it, they'll value it more and keep care of it. It's a cultural thing. I could imagine that loans work the same way: You don't get a donation, you'll get a loan that you have to work for. In that culture, it will be valued more. (Of course, that applies to the region I grew up in, I don't want to over-generalize.)
100 dollars have been used for 500+ loans, the last 8 years or so. While you can pick the recipients yourselves, I've opted for automatic re-lending on the platform.
That really depends on how much they want the security. People defend territory all the time. It's very, very expensive to do that -- have a look at some city walls -- but it's cost-effective because they are using the territory.
But no, no matter how large the group, they cannot buy cost-effective security for their giant stretch of wilderness if their plan for it is "don't use it" and there are other people who do have a use for it. Compare American government efforts to stop people from using land to grow marijuana. Is the problem that the American government just isn't big enough?
People are generally doing that in areas where people are allowed. Also the government has a stupendously large amount of land that it didn't pay for and a low budget for keeping anyone out.
It's different if this is land you're purchasing in the modern age. If you're buying a million acres for over a hundred million dollars, then that's about 150 miles of border to patrol. If you hire 150 people for that, at above-median wages, that's 3 million a year. Add some overhead, some expense for equipment and buildings, it's affordable enough compared to the purchase price. If that's too expensive then go up to 10 million acres, which triples the land area per mile of border. Or 100 million acres.
You probably need a watch tower about every 1~2 km, or even less if you'd use a strip of minefield to protect against hordes.
Shop around, not all organisations are equal. Also, there is probably similar programs in your area. A lot of good, well established wetland repurchase & conservation efforts in the US.
I think in general, supporting things like working forests from a government level (tax benefits) is probably something that isn't done enough, given forests are one of the best carbon sinks available to us.
They might want to write that into their books, but note that by buying an existing forest, no additional CO2 reduction is achieved on a global scale.
I know it's counter-intuitive, but it's *almost* better for the environment to NOT recycle paper and bury it in landfills. We're essentially reversing the process of extracting oil.
At best, a young and growing forest can be a temporary carbon sink, until it reaches maturity (and steady state).
Alternatively, a forest might support continual carbon sinking if and only if the recently dead and/or mature trees were somehow harvested and treated/stored in such a way that their carbon would not decompose and re-enter the rest of the biosphere.
A growing forest does consume CO2 more than it releases, but it does not seem to be the case now
A forest that is left untouched acts as a CO2 sink by photosynthesis and "capturing" the CO2 as bio-mass.
A re-forestation of land previously used for agriculture acts as a bigger CO2 sink because the potential for biomass capture is greater there.
- Big company/person X is does beneficial thing Y
HN:
- It's just a PR stunt!
- It's a ploy to leverage something else and make more profit!
- It's so tiny that it doesn't even make a difference! If they REALLY cared they'd do A, B, C...
- They're actually doing Y to accumulate Z for some nefarious purpose!
- I once did some interaction with X or their products and it went poorly!
- X has skeletons I, J, and K in their closet! Watch out!
- Man, what's with all the X haters on HN today?
- Hoo boy, here come the X fanboys!
I don't think people should just assume it's a positive impact without all of the facts. It could very well be a negative. You seem to be only focused on one dimension of this, forest conservation.
Here's IKEA's original Press Release which has been worked into this "news" article. The original PR actually has much more clarity: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/this-is-ikea/newsroom/ingka-inves...
IKEA makes it clear that the forest was formerly owned by a conservation group and was seemingly not in danger of being developed, contrary to the headline here.
"Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1]
I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous.
Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain themselves for doing something useful? What should they use to produce furniture? Would plastic be any better? Iron? Stone?
[1] https://inhabitat.com/one-percent-of-all-the-worlds-commerci...
Aside from one wardrobe which I had to get rid of (it was 237cm -- too tall for this house, so I gave it to my parents), the only furniture I can think of that hasn't lasted is the stuff from places that wasn't Ikea.
I get the feeling that Americans don't rate Ikea as highly as Europeans for some reason, possibly because it's a foreign firm (thinking of popular american TV shows of the late 90s and early 00s showing people struggling with assembling flat pack furniture)
https://notesmatic.com/2016/12/challenge-of-culture-in-marke...
> When entering the US market, it faced a major challenge because the business model it had been using was not replicable in US. Soon IKEA realized that the local culture was a challenge and there was a definite need to adapt to it
Generally, while they are in one piece and not moved, they are fine. But trasnporting or disassembling this stuff is a risk. The tiny wooden pegs, plastic bits and agressive screws going straight into soft board can rip out chunks, snap off, etc. Good luck getting a replacement door, etc.
I cannot confirm that IKEA furniture is not durable. It's mostly not hardwood, yes! Of course if you're not careful you can rip out a screw. But that screw or that board is usually easily replaced. And of course, IKEA also has cheaper and more expensive models, models that are not very robust, and models that are.
The IKEA kitchen island I have is made of solid wood and standard hardware. The top is butcherblock and can easily be resurfaced. This island will last many years.
The IKEA 'linmon' desk I have is laminated cardboard. The weight of my monitor causes the desk to bow. The surface has the durability of flat paint. My phone slipped out of my hand from 12 inches above the desk and put a 1/4 inch deep dent in it. I'm pretty sure if I squeezed it hard enough with my fingers, I could crush it.
The chair show it's ages on the fake-leather upper side (where your back lays) but then again... It's been used at elast nine years (but maybe it's been ten or eleven).
Heirloom furniture is in some ways less sustainable than Ikea products. I am not sure there would be enough sustainable hardwood in the world to meet demand at the scale of Ikea.
People have different furniture needs than they did decades ago, and in terms of weight, logistics, material use, Ikea are quite efficient.
Moving the lifecycle of a piece of furniture from 3-5 years closer to 20 is highly worth it; even if I no longer need it I prefer to leave it on the curb for someone else than have to shove it into the trash can. And these metal shelves will last longer than I will - and can move to the garage if I no longer need them.
Spotted a few comments from people saying they have had second hand items (3rd, 4th etc) - and I think that in my head is where my version of "disposable" has come from.
When I no longer want an Ikea product because it doesn't fit, or no longer needed - I will sell it online, and get a new one - for me I have "disposed of it" but actually its been "recycled" to someone that really wants it.
Anecdotally - I have never thrown away any IKEA furniture due to old age or defects. It's always been passed on, or I have received a new one. - Admittedly this is just my POV, and I fully understand people have their own experiences - but I would like to think that in some small part, I am helping with that sustainable process.
IKEA in this case, I am glad that they are at least trying to do something (again not saying other companies don't but we are in a thread about IKEA's recent work!) - and I would like to think that to round of the ring of sustainability that it isn't just the companies that need to input, its the people that use it too.
Maybe I am being too idealistic, but I will do what I can in my small little bubble to be part of that sustainable process!
I realise I got this far and didn't think about the point I was trying to make! - But yeah, from my perspective I don't feel like IKEA design it to be disposable, but I am sure other people have other experiences too :)
I'm very much surprised about the amount of comments here on HN (today and in many previous discussions) that claim to reuse IKEA furniture; it's completely contrary to my experience. My opinion of IKEA furniture is that it's single-assembly - trying to break it apart irreparably destroys it.
I conclude there must be either high variance in IKEA's production quality, or we're comparing apples to oranges. Maybe some IKEA products have more reassembly potential than others. Someone mentioned an office chair elsewhere in the thread - yeah, that obviously can last years and be moved, because it's made of metal and hard plastics. But most IKEA furniture I experienced is made of dried toilet paper glued with formaldehyde^W^W^W^W^W^Wmedium-density fibreboard and assembles destructively.
Look for furniture that will withstand someone leaning or sitting on it. The cheap designs are held together with cam-lock nuts and bolts or screws, and it's inevitable that at some point someone will lean on the desk and pull the screws through the particle board.
Furniture that will last longer has multiple fixings to keep it square, or diagonal cross-pieces (or a flat sheet).
This is going to last much longer:
..._____________
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..._____________
..._________•__|
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| |Some local pollution, but you ultimately are sequestering the carbon, so all is well.
The answer is, partly. We probably couldn't fix global warming, but we probably could negate a reasonable chunk of emissions.
This certainly can be more efficient and environment-friendly than using prime slow-growth oak (for example).
A bottle of coke should incorporate the cost of fishing the plastic out of the ocean.
Also still included in an EV is the carbon cost of mining, refining and manufacturing:
- Metal parts
- Plastic parts
- Organic fabric parts (raising cattle, big cost. Pleather? Still costly, and now it's plastic too, can't win)
- Battery minerals and production
- Electronics manufacturing
- Glass manufacturing
I am still all for EVs mind you, hell yes. But they are a massively consumptive item.
Much of it will last a lifetime as long as you never disassemble it or move it further than the next room. Some of it is more fragile than that. Very rarely something is more durable -- here's looking at you, Klippan!
Why only the companies should be responsible?
I would say it's fairer to share the "blame" with everyone else. The consumers, the government, the whole society.
Danish Design type of furniture is what breaks if you are not careful. I.e. slick nice looking chairs and what not.
Ikea doesn't compete with hardwood furniture... They compete with Wayfair, target, and Walmart furniture. Ikea builds a significantly better product with the same materials IMO.
The low prices at Ikea and others definitely encourage over-consumption - buying a new table instead of restoring an old one for example
Personally I don't necessarily subscribe to this argument, I think that we can focus on bigger sources of pollution/waste than transporting flatpack lumber, but I can see the argument
No way. Not as long as population growth is a thing. A lot of people shopping at IKEA are buying furniture for the first time. Imagine if we switched to all hardwood furniture. People would still need to buy as much furniture for the next 20-40 years or so at least, but now those furniture will have a huge environmental impact. Maybe you reduce the long-term impact, but probably not for 50 years at least.
Making things out of cheap and low-impact particle boards, cardboard cores, etc, is probably the most realistic way of reducing the environmental impact. It maximises the use of the wood, you can make it out of fast growing wood, and you minimise use of materials. If you reuse more of the wood fibers through recycling, it'd be even better.
I feel like this whole "we should use long-lasting re-usable furniture" thing is more about upper middle class people wanting to feel good about buying expensive furniture or spending the time to find and refurbish old furniture. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't scale.
Not only that, it being made out of particleboard doesn't necessarily make it disposable. My parents have a set of Pax wardrobes that they've had for 20 years (give or take?), and they're perfectly functional, and with some small amount of TLC (a small tin of paint) could even be classed as pretty!
I question that. Population growth is not that fast, and I can easily see how the amount of replaced furniture is bigger than the amount of furniture bought for the first time.
Manufacturing is done by machines but maintenance and repair are generally carried out by humans.
Agree that hostile design or just lack of attention are also huge issues.
(Throwing it away also includes giving it to the thrift store.)
This is never going to fly with regular folks, though. We could probably reduce pollution a ton if people started patching their clothes, but that's never going to happen either.
That carbon in your furniture isn't going into the air anytime soon, hopefully never.
It's a shame that wood is not as popular nowadays.
Of course people should regrow two trees for every one cut.
The problem is that, like with clothes, people THINK they need more and newer things all the time because Marketing tells them that they do.
I read somewhere (can't find the link right now) that shit tons of clothes and other items are not laying around in warehouses not being sold (due to lockdown) and I don't see people walking around naked in the streets.
So, before buying something, ask yourself: 1) Do I really need it? 2) Can I buy it used?
I only ever buy furniture because I really have a need for it. Not because I think it's cool or anything.
This is a problem with capitalism, not IKEA or clothing.
Exactly, IKEA *processes* one percent of commercial wood supply to build furniture for people. People who want furniture from IKEA use one percent of commercial wood supply. People want furniture made out of wood.
Same logic applies to oil companies who extract oil and WE use it to drive cars, take buses, use plastics, build roads etc.
If we convert that into acres we get... c11k Acres.
So they have bought and protected roughly what they will use across the next year, effectively like an offset.
Yeah, seems a little over the top to me too.
Ikea makes particle board furniture. Particle board is basically glue plus waste products from all the other things that use wood. You might as well complain that the dog food and fertilizer industries uses some % of the world's meat.
I won't say Ikea is a benefactor company because they preserved that land, but it certainly won't bother me!
https://fsc-watch.com/2020/07/02/ikeas-ukrainian-illegal-tim...
They've had these issues for at least 5 years, I remember reading about it back in 2015.
OTOH, it was recently announced that in order to promote sustainability, IKEA is going to sell spare parts too.
That's pretty good imho.
And keep in mind that we're talking about wood, something that's fairly recyclable, all things considered: imagine if apple started doing the same with iphone and macbook pro parts (that is selling spares directly to consumers)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/weve-hit-pe...
And even if that were true, their prospective sales don't depend on the "Western" world only, not to say anything about the fact that equating "the Western world does not buy stuff anymore" with "the world doesn't buy stuff anymore" is peak orientalist (but this being standard corporate communication it does not surprise me).
Of course it is, they just use illegal loggers in Romania to offset their actual need for the crappy disposable stuff they produce. They seem to get away with that no problem, despite EU restrictions on it.
I've never seen the appeal of IKEA when it came to furniture, the long lines at some of the bigger ones I've been to (for breakfast) are baffling and you'd think they were giving the stuff away given how long some people would wait to get in. It all looks and feels so cheap, it looks like what they use when staging a home for sale or what a cheap studio set looks like for a 1 shot scene in a movie.
IKEA had to settle so many wrongful infant deaths in the US, something that arguably could have been prevented by the parents, but it doesn't undo the fact that it comes down to a sub-standard QC/QA practices and literately no engineering in their design team. But, IKEA (now a Dutch company not Swedish despite its branding) is the China of furniture and focuses on that business model: cheap, disposable items that are profitable only at immense scale.
> Well, just because they're producing something useful doesn't mean they can't give back at the same time! Small changes add up.
Ha, useful... I'm guessing you've never lived near a University. the amount of IKEA crap that shows up in the dumpsters near off campus apartments at the end of the term is enough to make you forget about the word 'useful' when describing IKEA ever again. I've spent most of my time near Universities in the US, and its always the same crap littering the area after finals. The cheap plywood gets warped if it snows outside so most of its damaged beyond repair for even 2nd hand use. I wanted some night stands to use as in the garage for my tools once when I was in HS and was willing to do some repair work, but after dragging the thing a block it literately fell apart and the plywood had disintegrated and warped beyond use.
By that I mean that Ikea furniture doesn't chase current trends the way all the other big chains do (I'm in Austria). So buying furniture from Ikea means that you can use it for a long time without your home looking from a certain area.
Also, going to Ikea with kids is a great experience. It's almost like going to a theme park, and alternatively you can drop them off at the Småland.
Did you mean "era" given that you mentioned time? "Area" also sort of makes sense which is why I wanted to clarify.
Unfortunately we live in a world where virtue signaling is more important than actual virtues and winning arguments is more important than actual winning. Yes this is a PR thing and will help to create a positive public image that IKEA hopes will help them thwart the evil eyes of the rent seeking politicians.
Note: A tree is useful and carbon negative only if it is growing a tree in forest that has stopped growing is mostly useless for offsetting carbon, if anything we need a Logging 2.0 where we cut down a lot of trees and use them for long term purposes such as furniture, housing, infrastructure etc. and plant and grow new trees.
> Why they have to explain themselves for doing something useful?
They don't have to and neither does Amazon, Google, Exxon and thousand other companies have to explain anything to the public or govermint and yet you see so many attempts by government and activists to force them to explain.
To those in the second camp I'd ask, why shouldn't society seek to place limits on corporate behaviour when it believes that behaviour is harmful to the long term goals of society? Why should the profit motive be put before social need?
Without social and governmental intervention we'd still have cigarette companies paying doctors to promote their products as safe and healthy. We'd still be experiencing crime waves brought on by leaded gasoline and fireproofing would still be made from asbestos. Should the government and activists have allowed these things to continue? If not, what differentiates them from expecting Ikea to responsibly manage it's consumption of lumber?
Don't trees grow till they die?
Also people say IKEA is cheap but IMO it's actually rather expensive for what you're getting. Walk into an auction room and see what you can get for that 200 euro.
Written by someone who has clearly never been to an IKEA.
I know, I don't know how someone can love it either.. I hate the way they have these predefined paths so you can't quickly get what you need. And if you try to use the shortcut they make it as difficult as possible.
Usually I pick everything online and find out the storage locations, and just walk in through the checkouts to get what I need straight from the warehouse. Only issue is that some of the smaller knicknacks are only on the shop floor :(
However they've designed the store to TRAP YOU and make you go through the "shopping gauntlet" to exit.
It's definitely not for everyone, my sister hates the "gauntlet" (as someone else here called it) and how busy it gets.
But most people seem to be buying that £5 coffee table out of paper.
https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco...
Wikipedia: > The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period.[14][15] It is controlled by several foundations based in the Netherlands and Liechtenstein.[16][17]
They lead the article with THAT? #redflag
Makes me wonder how much property could be bought for preservation with a Go Fund Me?
ikea doesn't need to buy the forest for the wood.
> ikea doesn't need to buy the forest for the wood
This is a great investment, and this is business. It is ridiculous to think they're buying it just to offset their footprint.
It's not really restricted from development, but it's land that no one is in any hurry to develop.
https://www.channel4.com/news/investigation-thousands-of-tre...
And they also bought entire forests through corrupt companies. http://skyddaskogen.se/en/news/4852-ikea-s-forest-in-romania...
And those shitty bookshelves are way more biodegradable than if they were made out of any other material like plastic.
Proper forestry practices are much more common today even in developing countries than you think.
11,000 hectares is 45 km²
are you impressed? cause i'm not.
But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking about it.
IKEAs ability to produce products that people actually need, at such a scale, is amazing to me. It does what it promises. It's cheap. It fills most people's needs fully. Customer support is perfect. I know in 10 years replacements for their core products will still be available. Their way of innovating the products is genius.
I can't think of any other company that even comes close. Well, maybe LEGO.
If they're able to provide great customer service - well, good on them, but I'd much rather the public purse have the money necessary to support people in general. I'm very, very tired of "innovation" being used as an excuse to completely ignore relevant taxes and laws, especially when said innovation is often possible only because of extensive public investment in research, supply chain stability, etc.
(If you're not sure what I'm talking about with that last sentence: read The Entrepreneurial State, or talk to anyone who's ever received a DARPA / NSF / etc. grant, or maybe even just go look at an actual public sector budget sometime.)
They're clearly not a charity. But there are TONS of tax-sheltered businesses that aren't charities.
To me, it's morally equivalent to eg churches that use tax-free money to buy and operate super nice concert venues. Or any other non-profit that uses pre-tax money to pay salaries.
IMO, Ikea > Churches.
> or talk to anyone who's ever received a DARPA / NSF / etc. grant
Y Combinator recently published an article about how to bootstrap a biotech startup on a small seed round, and they included an example company. Step Zero was "get NSF/NIH grants and hire a student/post-doc at a university". Incidentally also the Step Zero for lots of tech companies in the 80s, 90s, and even today.
Did you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Criticisms ? There seems to be many reasons to dislike the company, even as a happy customer.
One thing that stuck with me is this:
"The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period."
It seems easy to sell cheaper if you just pay less taxes.
I'm not hating IKEA, but it's obviously not black or white.
Fight Club is the canonical example. The film picks IKEA to symbolize the enemy and justification for subversive nihilism ... it resonated well. "Friends" features IKEA the alienation theme as well. Phoebe thinks she has an antique apothecary table. You can smell the history of opium and medicinal brews. Turns out it's IKEA. She has a similar storyline with Nestle. Her grandmother's mythical cookie recipe turns out to be Nestle's.
I think the fact that IKEA does, in fact, have decent style/taste makes it a standout symbol of plastic consumerism. Does the cookie taste worse because it's Nestle. Does a handcrafted antique table actually have value? Is our culture worth anything or can it be replaced with mass produced, cheap alternatives?
I personally quite admire IKEA for doing what they do well. The corporate structure under a a charitable, tax-free organization is totally bogus and crass... but tax evasion is so prevalent that it's hard to single them out. That said, the cultural aspect is the relevant one and rationalisations aren't necessarily relevant to that.
As a side not, it's disheartening that what IKEA pretends to be doesn't actually exist. Imagine if an organisation with the size/competence of IKEA actually did exist for charitable reasons. 11,00 acres of wilderness might be an average afternoon.
Sure, there's a whole list of supposed justifications, but most people's "upgrade" furniture is the same mass-produced crap, but with some marketing to position it as for the class of people who are too good for ikea. Restoration Hardware and Wayfair are making great money selling people what is essentially Ikea furniture plus a little bit of snobbery.
High quality furniture requires skilled labor and is very expensive.
I would say that having built an Ikea kitchen and dealing with a few relatively minor issues, their customer support sucks. The employees are great, but the friction in getting to them is awful. Maybe the NY/NJ/CT Ikeas are worse with this.
I fitted two IKEA kitchens to past homes I lived in, 14 and 17 years ago. Not professionally fitted either, I did the hard work.
I found the properties had both recently been sold and had a look at the listings - both of the kitchens were still doing great.
The kitchen I fitted had solid oak door frames with a veneered panel, Quaker style if you will, with standard chipboard cabinets.
However, their US customer service is essentially non exsistent. I had items delivered damaged and could not get in touch with anyone. I eventually gave up as the effort was not worth it.
There really is something about a company that provides incredibly cheap products with a LONG return policy and good design to the masses. Plus their products might use a lot of wood, but they also offset it with renewable initiatives and by putting a lot of time into efficient shipping.
It's mass production without the opportunity to posture about your means. It's also often a complicated and confusing experience to put together if you don't heed the instruction booklet carefully.
Personally, I think IKEA's instructions are dramatically better than the norm. An exploded engine diagram is a common approach from other vendors.
Things made out of wood can last centuries. There's no need to further accelerate our throwaway culture with throwaway furniture.
For this reason primarily, I hate IKEA and do not buy from them. I prefer to buy actual furniture made by actual people. Reward local artisans, businesses, and shops and avoid waste. Reject globalism. It is what is eating the planet.
I've found if you buy something from IKEA when you're putting it together, using wood glue and better screws actually lengthens the life of their stuff considerably. I feel its not the wood that is the issue, just the crappy hardware they send with their stuff that is the issue.
But agreed on the rest of your points.
>it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime.
It lasts longer than most people think. I have a few IKEA dressers that I bought in 2012 that still look like new. Will they become antiques? No, but I only paid 80 dollars for them so I don't care.
>Yes it needs a lot of wood.
Carbon sink. Better than plastic.
Honestly, I haven't found IKEA to be all that cheap? When I was looking for a bed frame they seemed comparable to other midrange furniture places. I could definitely have found a similar thing cheaper online or maybe even at Walmart.
I guess I'm used to buying furniture used, where the floor's the limit for how cheap it can be, but my impression of IKEA was that people go there for the showroom experience and the meatballs more than the price.
Their bold claims of "just bring it back" were totally bogus.
Besides not providing the most durable furniture, albeit at the most competitive price and reasonably good looking designs, they've had a few PR disasters over the years like this one :p
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/25/172869585/ho...
Lots of iterative design revisions and deprecation makes many of IKEA systems not particularly future proof. But in general I think there's massive ecological benefits to how far IKEA goes to value engineer their products. Though ironically this means all the savings are going to be redirected at other consumption.
^ It's fiction. I just thought people here are the kind that would enjoy it.
Snobs, basically.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/01/2...
I asked a friend of a friend that's a carpenter and he made way better desk for same amount of money.