| Re: The Ikea way ~it's being socially and environmentally responsible
Many companies these days are striving to be seen as green. However, sorting out true dedication and committment to such values from some attempts can be difficult. In my forestry profession, I met IKEA groups on two occassions including major buyers from North America along with a head guy from Sweden. They do have a committment to not purchasing from intact forests which does not always translate into a good thing...sometimes yes, sometimes it is a simplistic approach. Although they stressed that they were really interested in purchasing policies that included forest certification systems (okay, just talking wood products here but they use a lot of wood products) I have seen little follow through in Canada.
FSC - forest stewardship certification - is an internationally recognized for both social and environmentally responsible and sustainable forest management (everything to forest renewal, wildlife, indengious people's rights). We now have FSC certification in many forests in Ontario and Canada. Yet to my knowledge little of this wood has made its way to IKEA...primary reason...price.
Although some European customers have shown a willingness apparently to pay a few more $$ for products made from FSC wood products, that has not caught on well in the North American market. Why many of us are interested in, or have already purchased, IKEA products is because of the money savings with a good quality product.
So, Ikea cabinetry is largely comprised of wood products and currently cabinetry costs $4,000 for someone to buy enough for a kitchen, would you spend $4400 (only 10% more) for that same product if it was certified from coming from a well managed forest (socially and environmentally). If $4400 was the price then you probably wouldn't know the difference and IKEA could claim it was utilizing certified wood. It would still be very competitively priced except for some of the companies from China dumping a lot of cabinetry in the North American market at very good prices. So, why doesn't IKEA do this more...profit of course, after all, it is a company in order to make a profit which should not be considered a bad thing. But, I suggest they temper their bragging about committments to environment and social aspects. having said that, they are certainly better than a lot of other companies out there.
Now, a question to IKEAfans, how important is this stuff to you? Take my example of a $4000 kitchen and a $4,400 kitchen but this time both are available, side by side in the Ikea store. You go in and get to choose which you want to buy...same quality but the $4000 one may be made from wood products out of Malaysia that were logged using methods that had significant impact on a local village, or that contributed to the loss of habitat for an endangered species. Do you shell out the extra $400? Tough question if you really had to answer it honestly.
The truth is, North American (and possibly European) companies making furniture, flooring and cabinetry are having a very tough time in recent years...lots of reasons but consider that the market share of some of these products by China have more than quadrupled. Why? Hardwood flooring at $2.99 is sqft is a lot more attractive to a customer than $4.99 sqft. A local hardwood flooring plant is trying to stay alive by importing wood and then manufacturing the flooring here because people now have a fascination with Brazilian cherry, african whatever wood, burmese teak. That's fine, to each his own, but if we really cared ourselves about the principles that Ikea brags about (this is not an IKEA message though) is that why not buy local maple, oak, cherry, beech...sustainably managed forest, local employment, less use of fossil fuels for shipping raw materials and finished products...etc.
A good thread discussion though. By the way, I'm not aware kitchens made exclusively from FSC certified products and, given that IKEA purchasing practices are better than lots of companies, I don't feel too bad about considering buying IKEA items. It would be better though if the IKEA kitchen was from certified forests. Ikea is by no means bad, but they could be better if they lived up to some of their stated commitments.
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