IKEA fails at caring for forests and excels at opening new furniture stores

Environmental activists plant trees at the construction site to prevent the new IKEA Iași store from being built

Iași, 12 October 2024 – Agent Green, the Mai Bine Association from Iași and Protect the Forest from Sweden are protesting today at IKEA’s construction site in Iași because the Scandinavian company that claims to be friendly to the Planet is in fact complicit in degrading Romania’s forests. Several volunteers from the organizations slipped between the machinery at the IKEA site and are planting trees today to draw attention to the fact that the company cannot continue expanding in the market while abusing Romania’s forests. The activists’ banners bear the message: “Out of Iași, IKEA! Let The Trees Grow / Let The Trees Grow”.

Lina Burnelius, international coordinator at Protect the Forest: “IKEA and its suppliers are destroying Romania’s last oases of biodiversity. I am from Sweden, IKEA’s country of origin, where the forestry practised invades functioning ecosystems daily in favour of monoculture plantations. It saddens me beyond words to see IKEA doing the same in the precious Carpathian forests. What we want from IKEA is clear and scientifically well founded. If IKEA decides to continue down its usual path of destruction, it does so knowingly. IKEA has received the Agent Green and BMF report exposing forest crimes in the Swedish company’s forests, so they know what is at stake.”

Elvys Sandu, president of Mai bine: “In the context of the current climate crisis, IKEA’s actions in Romania are a flagrant example of unsustainable exploitation, destroying old forests of great ecological importance. Instead of respecting its sustainability promises, IKEA allows its supply chain to degrade some of Europe’s last refuges of biodiversity, endangering the future of ecosystems and aggravating global environmental problems. This practice cannot be justified and requires urgent change to protect Romania’s natural heritage.”

Gabriel Păun, president of Agent Green: “IKEA treats Romania’s forests like a cornfield. Letting trees grow old is not part of IKEA’s culture. Annihilating entire forests within a short time is a matter of urgency for IKEA, the tree hunter. The company respects neither written laws nor nature’s unwritten ways. IKEA does not practise what it preaches, whether it is European Union nature directives, Romania’s national legislation or the FSC forest certification standard. Given its status as a company with a turnover of billions of euros and Romania’s largest private forest owner, IKEA must become an example of good practice.”

Agent Green and Bruno Manser Fond (BMF) recently published THE REPORT, exposing a consistent pattern of environmental crimes in forests associated with IKEA. The organizations first analysed the official documents of forests controlled by IKEA and carried out field visits in half of IKEA’s 43 forests in Romania, covering 51,000 hectares. The report identifies over 50 activities suspected of breaching national and European laws in 7 forests owned by IKEA through its company Ingka Investments and 2 other forests supplying wood used to manufacture IKEA products. Forests rich in biodiversity are being wiped off the face of the Earth. Aggressive logging in fragile ecosystems and even old-growth forests without an appropriate environmental assessment, and dozens of tractor roads several metres deep cutting through forests in every direction, are just some of the documented problems.

Report on IKEA’s forests for free download and use:
Download PDF in Romanian

Footage from IKEA-owned forests for free download and use: https://vimeo.com/agentgreen/ikea2023

Most forests visited overlap wholly or partly with Natura 2000 protected areas. Some were either untouched or under low-intensity forestry before Ingka became the owner. Today, all are managed to maximize timber extraction, disregarding forest habitats and their vital role for species. Only 1.04% of Ingka’s total holdings in Romania are under strict protection and 8.24% under partial protection. This is wholly insufficient to meet EU+ objectives. The EU Biodiversity Strategy provides for partial protection of at least 30% of each Member State and strict protection of at least 10%. A key objective is the strict protection of all remaining primary and old-growth forests in Europe. Against these European objectives, IKEA owes at least 8.96% in strict protection and at least 11.76% in partial protection.

The environmental organizations call on IKEA to abandon the construction of its Iași store, control its Romanian forestry operations, rigorously check logging companies, refrain from sourcing timber from national parks or primary and old-growth forests, increase strictly and partially protected areas to 30%, apply selective logging in its own forests, ensure full traceability and transparency throughout IKEA’s supply chain, and allow independent monitoring of its forests by civil society and investigative journalists.

Press contacts:

Lina Burnelius, international coordinator at Protect the Forest, lina.burnelius@skyddaskogen.se, +46734404793

Anca Gheorghică, Mai Bine Association, 0745767939

Gabriel Paun, president of Agent Green, office@agentgreen.org