IKEA: Is It Green?

Considering that most of my furniture (whatever wasn't found curbside) came from IKEA, this article from Inhabitat's Is It Green is reassuring :)  Ikea may only have started working towards sustainability in the last decade, but they're jumping ahead with their mission "low price, but not at any price".

 

They excel in transparency and positive effort with their  IKEA: Our Responsiblity pages, documenting standards including: People & the Environment, Products & Materials, Climate Change, IWAY/Code of Conduct, Working Conditions, Social Initiative, Partnership, and Naitonal Community Involvement.  I'm impressed to see such a large corporation taking responsibility and accountability for their products in a cradle-to-cradle sense.

Also unique for a big box retailer is setting concrete renewable energy standards: We have set the first step for 2009, where we're going to reach 60 percent renewable energy and 15 percent more energy efficient. Then, based on analysis we are doing right now, we will set the end goals, hopefully during this calendar year. -Thomas Bergmark in an interview with Grist. 

From simple things like recycling CF lightbulbs, supplying organic lingonberries and flatpacking ethically sourced wood furniture to the larger participation in a collaborative conceptual mindshift IKEA is a company that is reversing the usual corporate approach and accomplishing much while speaking little.