Investigation: IKEA’s Flat Pack Empire Built On Thousands Of Illegally Felled Trees
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By: Alex Thomson
They’re the largest manufacturer, buyer and retailer of wood on the planet. IKEA’s factories consume more than 20 million cubic meters of wood a year. That works out as roughly one tree every second.
The company tells consumers that the wood in its products comes from sustainable forests.
But a major investigation by this programme and the environmental organisation Earthsight has discovered that some of the wood that ends up in Ikea’s most popular products has been cut down illegally.
The wood comes from the lush forests of the Carpathian mountains on the border between Ukraine and Romania – where corruption and illegal logging is a growing problem. Tonight Ikea has launched an investigation into our findings.
Read about IKEA’s new sustainable “Home of Tomorrow” here.
This story originally appeared in Channel 4 News and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
Lead image courtesy of David Mantel / Getty Images.
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