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Ikea not eco at all? Environmental activist raises serious allegations against furniture stores on ZDF

2021-08-02T11:12:00.876Z


Ikea likes to adorn itself with the image of nature-loving Swedes. Insiders consider this image a marketing fairy tale - and raise serious allegations.


Ikea likes to adorn itself with the image of nature-loving Swedes.

Insiders consider this image a marketing fairy tale - and raise serious allegations.

Munich - Ikea's sales psychological tricks were recently carefully scrutinized in a somewhat exaggerated TV report.

In the ZDF report (available in the media library), the world's largest furniture chain is put in a critical light because of another point - the issue of sustainability.

An anonymous environmental activist knows the delivery routes and subcontractors of the furniture giant well and raises serious allegations about the origin of the production materials, especially wood.

"I know the price that the environment pays for Ikea," says the insider.

“Alva”, as his name is, leads the camera team to a cleared slope in the protected forests of Romania.

There is a network of foundations of the Ingka Investments belonging to Ikea.

Here the company would operate legitimized clear cutting and irrevocably transform wooded areas into “lunar landscapes”.

The Swedish group would completely ignore European environmental standards.

Ikea with gigantic wood consumption: exploitation of nature as a business model?

The wood consumption of the Swedish furniture giant is gigantic: one percent of the global wood harvest would end up in the products of the retail giant every year. Most recently, Ikea assured that over 98 percent of the natural raw material comes from sustainable sources. However, the anonymous insider explains that the company continues to source wood from questionable sources. Only recently came new allegations that Ikea was using illegal wood from protected forests in Russia for its children's furniture *.

The activist claims in the TV documentary that illegal clearing is also taking place in Romanian primeval forests.

In addition, violent attacks against foresters and conservationists are the order of the day - and mostly go unpunished.

A look at the statistics also shows how pronounced the environmental damage is: According to this, over 400,000 hectares of forest have disappeared in Romania since 2001 due to commercial clearing.

Confronted with the allegations, Ikea explains in a statement: “This (

Romania, d. Red.

) Is a natural part of responsible forest management (...).

The previous stands were unhealthy and overgrown by various species that are not appropriate to the natural forest type. "

Another insider, who herself worked for the company, believes the current Ikea campaign (“Sustainability must not be a luxury”) is “greenwashing” to serve the zeitgeist - and not to really change something.

In addition, Ikea is the inventor of “throw-away furniture” and is therefore wasteful in terms of resources.

Ikea: Furniture giant plays with Swedish cliché - most of it comes from China

In the ZDF documentary “Die Insider” the thesis is raised that furniture giant Ikea is playing with the nature-loving cliché of its origin, but in reality just four percent of the products come from Sweden.

Rather, China is the country from which most of the products come - with 28 percent.

In addition, the ZDF report explains that Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad relocated the headquarters of the billionaire company to the Netherlands, allegedly to save taxes.

Incidentally, the furniture giant recently announced that it would reduce its product range in 2022.

The reasons are increased demand and problems with trade routes from Asia:

Sustainability is extremely popular - at least since "Fridays for Future" *. And the latest climatic developments also contribute to the fact that this topic has come to the center of public interest. A long time ago, Ikea announced that it would increasingly rely on renewable and recyclable products, and the company also wants to become climate-positive. A corresponding advertising campaign cost the furniture giant many millions of euros.

* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-08-02

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