Ingka Group, the owners of the IKEA furniture chain, just bought 3,200 acres of forest in Florida that had been destroyed by a hurricane in order to restore it with longleaf pine.
Part of the retail giant’s commitment to carbon neutrality, Ingka Group has gradually accumulated more than 600,000 forested acres in the U.S., Europe, and New Zealand to offset the CO2 it releases during its entire value chain.
“The new forests will support increased biodiversity, help ensure sustainable timber production from responsibly managed forests, and recover land damaged by Hurricane Michael in October 2018,” Ingka Group stated.
“The afforestation business… is a long-term investment that consolidates our business while also positively impacting the climate through the absorption of CO2 during the forests’ growth.”
If Ingka can keep the forests healthy and alive, in 40 years they will pull carbon out of the air equal to a certain percentage of the carbon placed into the atmosphere by IKEA’s operations, while providing valuable habitat to vulnerable species like the red-cockaded woodpecker, gopher tortoise, pine snakes, and dusky gopher frogs.
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GNN reported in 2021 that IKEA bought 11,000 acres in Georgia to stop it from being clear-cut and developed. In that instance Ingka teamed up with The Conservation Fund to create working forests that are harvested and regenerated sustainably to save the cost of managing them, while also being placed along important biodiversity corridors, or to stop habitat fragmentation.
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Forest stewardship is just one way that the world’s largest furniture outlet is trying to become a carbon-neutral company. They recently announced they would begin buying used IKEA furniture from customers for resale, while electric vans and less carbon-emitting materials are used in both packaging and product.
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