Flisat Table

Ikea (headquartered in the Netherlands) designs the Flisat table. Ikea then procures timber, often from illegally harvested Russian wood. This wood is then shipped to a factory in Indonesia. Where it is produced mainly by women under inadequate conditions. The final product is then shipped to Canada. (Earthsight, 2021)

Ikea requests lumber from its producers in Russia. Russian companies cut down trees, often illegally. The Russian wood is shipped to a factory in Indonesia. The factory produces the Flisat table. The table is then shipped to Canada (Earthsight, 2021)

The factory the produces the table gets 96% of its business from Ikea. As a result Ikea can and has put tremendous pressure on the factory to continue to produce more and reduce overall costs. Ikea is also one of the largest users of wood products in the world. Russian companies specifically do a lot of business with Ikea. The Russian logging companies are under a lot of pressure to keep up with the demand; which leads to fraud and over harvesting. (Earthsight, 2021)

Ikea should source its wood from countries with a better record of regulations, enforcement, and forest stewardship. Ikea should rely on its own internal auditing system to enforce the values that it claims to have. Allowing outside NGO’s or companies to do so just adds another layer of potential for different motives or fraud. Ikea could demand improvements to worker safety and pay at the factories that it works with; to help offset the cost they could moderately increase their prices

Earthsight. Ikea’s House of Horrors: The Stolen Russian Forests being Greenwashed into Kids’ Furniture. (July, 2021). Retrieved December 10, 2023 from            https://www.earthsight.org.uk/news/investigations/ikea-house-of-horrors#group-section-key-         findings-YVKQ7QHS4I