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IKEA invests 200M euro to become climate positive by 2030
- bloogsy 7y agoAdmirable - considering the size of IKEA as a business this can only be a good thing. Hopefully they reach carbon neutral sooner than 2030 before pushing on to carbon positive. My only concern is that planting trees isn't necessarily accurate measured as a carbon sink, with the amount of carbon captured often overestimated. However to reiterate, this can only be a good thing.
- Ndymium 7y agoThere's a lot of talk about planting trees now with TeamTrees and other similar things. I'm wondering what we will do with all the trees then when they have stopped growing and thus mostly stop sequestering CO₂. Trees don't live forever and when they die and rot, they will release the CO₂ back. We could build things out of the trees and those would last maybe 50 to 100 years more. Or we could encase them in concrete and bury them to prevent rotting. But I don't really know a good solution and I was wondering what people have already thought of it. Or is the plan that we will come up with a solution to that in the next 50 years when the trees grow?
- Numberwang 7y agoImpregnate the wood, build buildings.
- bamboozled 7y agoWhat if we focus on planting trees that are expected to live for hundreds of years and just hope we have better technology to cope with the situation once we’ve stopped burning every lump of coal we can find.
- CalRobert 7y agoGrowing them to restore grazing or otherwise degraded land works, though.
- Ndymium 7y agoHmm so when a forest grows, it sequesters a certain amount. When the trees start dying, they will start releasing it. But when the trees die, new trees will start growing in their stead and sequester the CO₂ released from the dying trees. Is the point to capture CO₂ into these cycles? So as only part of the trees are dying at any given stage, only a part of the CO₂ is "available" in the air at any given moment. Is that how it works?
- growlist 7y agoI'll be amazed if that's enough.
- rahuldottech 7y agoA good thing, but too late. 2030 is too late.
- exit 7y agoit really may be. it may be too late to do anything short of dramatic geo-engineering to avert catastrophic climate change. but there is still value in even marginal improvements to the climate change outcome. you have to compound the contribution over the entire remaining history of life on this planet. this is a horrifying situation. no one should deny how badly humanity has screwed up.
- majewsky 7y ago> but there is still value in even marginal improvements to the climate change outcome. Especially because even modest impacts slightly increase the chance to not hit the next tipping point.
- SeaSeaRider 7y agoIn Sweden, the land of a billion trees, Ikea wooden spoons are made in China and transported to Sweden. ANY company that does this and claims to be green is blowing smoke up your ass.
- tonyHwks 7y agothere are other ways of saying it, but yeah...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- prawn 7y agoWouldn't they be transported around the world? Surely IKEA doesn't manufacture abroad, bring everything to Sweden, and then ship out from there! Perhaps China is a reasonably central point to transport from?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CalRobert 7y agoOďd, it seems like most of their stuff I buy is from eastern Europe, especially Poland.
- audunw 7y agoTransport on the ocean has a relatively low carbon impact per kg. Spoons are small. It might actually be more efficient to build just one factory that can make spoons for IKEAs store across the world, rather than build a bunch of small local factories all over the place. Don't make assumptions.
- interdrift 7y agoExcellent, the EU should be a leader in this
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agoIkea: now that we have carved up the budget, how can we disseminate the message so that it makes a) employees feel good and b) ensure customers believe we are doing our best. Ideally how are we going to deflect from all our past and ongoing crimes[0][1][2][3]? Sven Samenström: Oh I know, we just say it's to combat climate change and put a timeline on it so far into the future that nobody will remember this PR piece, and nobody will hold us accountable. Talk is cheap! [0] Spies and Racism at Ikea? https://abcnews.go.com/International/ikea-fire-book-executive/story?id=9072719 https://abcnews.go.com/International/ikea-fire-book-executiv... [1] How Ikea And Harvard Got Tangled In A Corrupt Romanian Land Deal https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harvard-ikea-corruption-romania_n_56d86cbbe4b0000de4039509 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harvard-ikea-corruption-roman... [2] Swedish group IKEA starts exploiting its forests in Romania https://www.romania-insider.com/swedish-group-ikea-starts-exploiting-forests-romania https://www.romania-insider.com/swedish-group-ikea-starts-ex... [3] IKEA’s Flat-Pack Tax Scheme: a Corporate Structure Designed to Facilitate Profit-shifting and Tax Avoidance https://medium.com/@jurgeng/ikeas-tax-scheme-a-corporate-structure-designed-to-facilitate-profit-shifting-and-tax-avoidance-798caf842fb6 https://medium.com/@jurgeng/ikeas-tax-scheme-a-corporate-str...
- me_me_me 7y agoI thought I was cynical, but this is exactly how I see it. Biggest corporations pay no or near to nothing taxes and then they give a small handouts to communities and we suppose to kiss their feet for being so generous. Same happened with starbucks recently where they offer to supplement budget with once off donation instead of paying their fair share.
- Rapzid 7y agoThe biggest corporations pay lots of "taxes". It's interesting how corporations "aren't people" until taxes come up :)
- me_me_me 7y agoThey are not people despite the fact they they want everyone thing that they are. > The biggest corporations pay lots of "taxes" You could almost say that they pay thousands. https://lmgtfy.com/?q=corporate+taxes+paid+in+2018 https://lmgtfy.com/?q=corporate+taxes+paid+in+2018
- aaron695 7y agoIt's an awful awful waste of money in a world with a billion people living on less than $2 a day just to comfort some rich brats. But then they spend $444 million a year on advertising, so it's not like we don't live in a world were large amounts are $ are ploughed into the ground. Planting trees will at least have some benefit going forward.
- Angostura 7y agoIts the people living on less than $2 a day who are most likely to feel the worst inital effects of climate change. Us rich brats will be insulated for a while yet.
- rimliu 7y agoSeriously? Those living on $2 a day do so just to comfort some rich brats?
- exit 7y agono, the parent is saying IKEAs efforts are just a matter of comforting "some rich brats", and that these efforts are "a billion people living on less than $2 a day"
- majewsky 7y agoAh yes, the old "why should we fix potholes while children in Africa are starving" argument. Ridiculous as ever.
- PeterStuer 7y agoHere is what I would like from IKEA if they truly want to embrace the climate. I would like them to move towards durable quality furniture that last 100 years instead of furniture as a fashion business where you redecorate every season. I would like them to stop creating mazes designed to maximize impulse purchasing.
- vasco 7y agoOr you can work with what exists and make a beneficial improvement to the world
- exit 7y agoif all that exists is systemically broken and misaligned with the well being of sentient life, then you've just committed yourself to ruin.
- quickthrower2 7y agoIKEA furniture is durable and has a decent second hand marketplace on ebay, gumtree etc.
- lnsru 7y agoCan you provide some examples? Currently sold furniture is basically junk made from paper. It would not stand 2nd or 3rd relocation. Heck, it gets broken during first assembly! Old second hand pieces are good quality, but one needs to look for at least decade old things. They were made from wood back then.
- exit 7y agowhat you would like is for the profit motive to stop being the dominant force on this planet. that is an extremely tall order. "IKEA" as an agent in the world, despite being acted out by relatable individual human beings, is actually a mindless beast.
- krn 7y agoI believe that IKEA is climate negative by design: it's H&M / Primark of furniture world. Because just like fast fashion, fast furniture encourages extreme levels of production and consumption of short-lasting goods, which are later often thrown away, rather than being resold and reused.
- Tomte 7y agoIn my experience, IKEA furniture is handed down multiple times. I myself have IKEA CD racks that I bought, gave my parents when I moved, they gave them to my sister when she moved and needed them, and after fifteen years or so they are back in my current apartment. (OT: why the hell did they discontinue this absolutely classic line? Just because it didn't really work for Blu-rays?) Actually, my apartment looks quite eclectic, since I have lots and lots of IKEA furniture from my student days mingled with "solid" furniture bought later and a few high-end furniture pieces bought much later.
- aequitas 7y agoI think it depends on your mindset. If I look at the Ikea furniture in my house, about half of it is second hand. I specifically search for Ikea product names on second-hand sites instead of more generic terms like cabinet or table because I know the quality of Ikea products, where for others I'd have to guess.
- owenversteeg 7y agoI have a feeling that, gradually, the most visible businesses and products will become greener, with nearly everything else remaining massively polluting. IKEA might become carbon neutral, while companies supplying furniture to furnished apartments, office buildings, etc. won't do anything. Nobody will know if "Franklin Property Management" or whatnot is or isn't green.