This seems a little misleading. 66,000 acres would be 270 sq km, 33% of the country is 22,000 sq km so IKEA owns just over 1% of the forested land.
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.
It's none of my business if Ikea wants to buy productive forest land and take it out of production.
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.
I think you're being disingenuous if you're saying you don't know the difference between an old growth forest and a 25 year old monoculture stand of trees which is due to be clear-cut and replanted.
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.
The difference in this particular case is that Ikea is not taking productive forest land and taking it out of production. It is taking naturally forested land that is at risk of deforestation that would ostensibly then be used for a monoculture wood farming industry.
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.
What's the overall effect of forests vs farm/crop land? Forests provide homes to lots of animals. Farms do not. Forests help recycle the air. Farms do not. I'm sure there's others, but you get the point. At least, I hope you can honestly see a difference between a forest and farm land and that this is just some sort of mental gymnastics excersising of your devil's advocate muscles.
It's a rather poorly written, biased article, with a typo in the first sentence, but IKEA isn't taking the land/trees out of circulation. They're using the resources while also aligning this move with their other sustainability goals, including on the carbon side.
Not implying that this is corporate propaganda to cater to the US public, but something similar happened to my country where saving the planet is not on the agenda of its citizens since there are other problems that need to be solved first. [1]
"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.
I have a problem with IKEA. Aren't those peaces of furniture made of composite materials and those not so sturdy shelves a sustainability problem when compared to traditional furniture making which is mostly wood glue a protective coat which lasts for hundreds of years can be infinitely repaired in a workshop with some basic tools. And then it it all ends it can became firewood, which ikea furniture can't.
I would say most pieces of furniture sold these days are made of engineered wood [0], if that's what you mean by "composite materials". Aside from easier sourcing, I presume that a big driver of it's use is the fact that it is easier to shape and produce - no having to figure out how it will be assembled using the various sizes of timber available.
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).
I think making things in the way that minimises the impact at production time is the most important thing right now. Population growth is still a thing. Many people are buying furniture for the first time. If you start using hardwood for all furniture it could easily be devastating to the worlds forests.
> 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.
There seems to be a misconception that Ikea is all cheap composite. It's really not true, they cover a wide range, and they have full-wood models for nearly all product categories
Obviously most people buy the cheap stuff, but that's the case of any low/medium end furniture chain really
> Aren't those peaces of furniture made of composite materials and those not so sturdy shelves.
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.
Yeah, that cheap composite wood is use once and dump. It can’t even survive a move sometimes.
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.
My ikea side tables were £4 each (called Lack I think, about 5 and a half usa dollars), I could not afford anything more expensive at the time. If you can get me two side tables made from solid wood that last for hundreds of years for less than £10 then I would 100% choose those over the Lacks. In fact at the time, I'd have gone up to £20 or £25 if I knew they were that good quality.
Some of their stuff is indeed composite - cardboard honeycomb structure with thin veneer on top. Others are more sturdy. Pretty much everything they sell will have a low impact on the environment when they reach end of life though.
Anyway, stop buying their $5 tables and get something a bit more sturdy.
How much would buying all the Brazilian rain forest cost the world, or even renting it from Brazil? We would need it to be slightly more than cattle farming to work... but I’d happily pay towards this.
Buying rain forest would mean nothing for illegal rare wood markets, or illegal gold mining, or illegal forest fires to stretch cattle grazing area.
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.
well, in first place Brazil (or Peru, Suriname, etc) should be wanting to sell or rent it. Which they aren't. Second, it won't help to buy or rent it if there is no control in the region. Third, Europe together with China are the biggest market of illegal wood. France has a high military presence on the French Guyana, and they could definitely pass intelligence to some navy to catch the boats leaving Brazil/Suriname towards Europe. So it's not matter of who owns it but if all nations actually want to fight the black market around illegal wood and biopiracy, which they clearly don't want.
I read an article commenting on "microlending", which came to the conclusion that the concept doesn't really work. Your loan of $3.50 might really mean something to the peasant who receives it. But it means nothing to you, and so microloans end up with no one vetting the borrower for creditworthiness or hassling them to collect. This incentive mismatch ends up spoiling the project; there's no reason for someone not to take out a microloan, drink the money away, and default.
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.
You wouldn't just need to buy them, you'd also need to police and monitor them constantly, if you bought them from abroad without further intervention unscrupulous people would just move in and start working the land anyway, and if you can figure out how to police it better than they can you might just be better off developing that.
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.
Isn't it a bit unfair to impose that on Brazil? Europe doesn't have much wood anymore because they used so much of it from the Romans on. The US exported a lot of wood to Europe early in its history (still does). Should we tell Brazilians, "Sorry, that worked for us, but now that we're rich we care about the environment, so tough luck?"
The most cost effective way is probably dropping a few hundred million anti personnel mines in the forest. They're very cheap to produce, very expensive to remove, and reliably keep people out of the area.
Not disparaging IKEA at all--moves like this should be lauded--but this is a working forest, harvested for lumber. I can't speak to how sustainably it's harvested or anything, and while this is commendable, there is profit motive here, as IKEA is heavily dependent on wood for its products.
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.
It's a good point to raise, as a working forest is quite different to a protected forest. Where I live is surrounded by working forest and regularly a large swathe will be felled, having a big impact on wildlife and taking at least a couple of decades for that land to recover. That's good for carbon sequestration, which is what Ikea wants it for, but not so good for the forest residents.
Well, if that move keeps it from being cut (as evidently was the case), I'd prefer this over the unhealthy new forests that are ecologically unsound but are purely for bookkeeping CO2.
Unless they plan on cutting the forest down, replanting everything anew and BURYING the chopped wood, they are not really helping. CO2 already in trees doesn't quickly return to the atmosphere if wood is used for long lasting things. Now, IKEA is known to do the opposite...
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.
Meanwhile, in Romania, IKEA owned (through "Vastint") Băneasa Forest is being redeveloped into a 476k sqm (118 acres) residential area. My point here is, once they own the forest, they may choose to redevelop it any any time.
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.
That's a pretty small forest by American standards but buying up forests or any kind of open land with the intent to spare them from being wrecked by another sprawling exurb is a great thing to do. Similar work has been done by various open space preservation funds and land trusts in California. As a climate strategy it's not really even about the forests, it's about the exurban Americans who are the greatest threat to the global climate.
This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt.
"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?
"IKEA is continuing to try and remain true to their principals—protecting the environment and striving to become a carbon neutral company, while still remaining one of the world’s most pleasurable shopping experiences."
Written by someone who has clearly never been to an IKEA.
I wish IKEA was public so I could buy some shares. Not because of this news necessarily, I do not see much value with this move but in general I can see that their business works amazingly here in Europe.
Manufacturing and building things out of sustainably managed forestry is one of the best ways to sequester carbon while making a profit and producing products people use and value.
Here's the link to Economist article from 2005, which explains how IKEA uses non-profit status. I frequently buy from IKEA but used to think of it a well oiled corporation, and didn't know that it was "non-profit".
If you avoid paying taxes, it is easy to be charitable.
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]
[+] [-] fy20|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dmurray|5 years ago|reply
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.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_in_Lithuania
[+] [-] trymas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] resu_nimda|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] melomal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] worldvoyageur|5 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] sharkjacobs|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] snoshy|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dylan604|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] okprod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnycerberus|5 years ago|reply
"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...
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
Majority never will, see Navalni exposing theft after theft and ending up in jail himself.
[+] [-] fimdomeio|5 years ago|reply
Shouldn't they start fixing the world there?
[+] [-] Varriount|5 years ago|reply
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/
[+] [-] audunw|5 years ago|reply
> 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.
[+] [-] namdnay|5 years ago|reply
Obviously most people buy the cheap stuff, but that's the case of any low/medium end furniture chain really
[+] [-] bayindirh|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] KaiserPro|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nashashmi|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] CyanDeparture|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|5 years ago|reply
Anyway, stop buying their $5 tables and get something a bit more sturdy.
[+] [-] andy_ppp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoingIsLearning|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pelasaco|5 years ago|reply
References:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-biopiracy/brazil-t...
https://www.dw.com/en/wood-laundering-brings-illegal-amazon-...
http://www.globaltimber.org.uk/ChinaIllegalImpExp.htm
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] faceplanted|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalbasal|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffreyrogers|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexggordon|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] altacc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kleiba|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] osobo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Heliosmaster|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] chordalkeyboard|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kstenerud|5 years ago|reply
- 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!
[+] [-] randunel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway2245|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jeffbee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piokoch|5 years ago|reply
"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...
[+] [-] xuhu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isthisnametaken|5 years ago|reply
Written by someone who has clearly never been to an IKEA.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] radres|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
But most people seem to be buying that £5 coffee table out of paper.
[+] [-] napier|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tahoeskibum|5 years ago|reply
https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco...
[+] [-] throw8932894|5 years ago|reply
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]