Live data from Hacker News

IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

goodnewsnetwork.org

191–200 of 622 posts

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#191
"IKEA is continuing to try and remain true to their principals—protecting the environment and striving to become a carbon neutral company, while still remaining one of the world’s most pleasurable shopping experiences."

Written by someone who has clearly never been to an IKEA.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#192
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I had some second-hand (a desk, used for four eyars) and third-hand (an office chair, used for the last ~9 years) and yes it's pretty durable. The chair show it's ages on the fake-leather upper side (where your back lays) but then again... It's been used at elast nine years (but maybe it's been ten or eleven).

The thing about IKEA's stuff is that you usually cannot disassemble and reassemble most of it back losslessly when, say, moving houses. But then again, a lot of more expensive furniture doesn't fare any better.

Every single IKEA piece of furniture in my house (desks, tables, sofas, shelves...) is entirely "lossless assembly", although when moving I didn't have to put them apart down to individual parts because they're also designed for whole components to be (dis)assembled and reassembled quickly. I think I have like one piece of furniture that is not entirely lossless and that's the back panel on a closet that needs to be nailed (which provides diagonal constraint), which I've done three times over yet still has room for more.

Okay it's not grandma's stuff that's made of thick solid wood and lasts centuries, but it has really held up well to reasonable abuse.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#193
post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

IKEA uses wood? really? I thought they used shitty agglomerates and other mixes in their furniture, maybe all the wood is for something else?

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#194
post #179
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I had some second-hand (a desk, used for four eyars) and third-hand (an office chair, used for the last ~9 years) and yes it's pretty durable. The chair show it's ages on the fake-leather upper side (where your back lays) but then again... It's been used at elast nine years (but maybe it's been ten or eleven).

erhm... sorry... but IMHO nine years are "nothing". A good chair should last at least 50 years.

Then be prepared to pay 10x the IKEA price.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#195
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed - which is the argument for point-of-extraction carbon pricing. Then you don't have to calculate anything, it gets sorted out along the supply chain by individual decisions as to whether the CO2 cost is worth it compared to the available alternatives at that step .

The problem there is that most ways to add carbon pricing are against the self interest of whomever enacts it. Point-of-extraction is especially bad because it places all of the initial burden on the few places that actually extract carbon, who are probably not going to like that idea.

I guess it depends on the 'who' in those places.

It's not hard to imagine a government rather fancying getting a tax receipt from extraction companies, particularly if it is seen as green. Who would presumably lobby rather hard against it. This suggests the absence of pricing at source is to some extent a result of successful lobbying.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#196
post #5

How much would buying all the Brazilian rain forest cost the world, or even renting it from Brazil? We would need it to be slightly more than cattle farming to work... but I’d happily pay towards this.

The most cost effective way is probably dropping a few hundred million anti personnel mines in the forest. They're very cheap to produce, very expensive to remove, and reliably keep people out of the area.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#197
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because they're fighting the arguably true reality that the majority of their furniture is designed to be disposable, and consumers are generally fine with that. I'd like to be wrong, though until we require companies to be responsible for all costs associated with the full lifecycle of a product so externalized costs are incorporated, we're not going to develop the most sustainable practices.

I've been using a lot of IKEA furniture for many years, some new, some secondhand (sometimes I'm the third or fourth owner) and I must say they're quite durable unlike some of the new furniture I've bought over the year and had to throw away.

Yeah I would argue with the disposability. I use it for many years. I have some Ikea stuff that's 40 years old. Granted, their current product line is not quite as durable but this is partially because they use less materials (hollow surfaces etc).

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#198
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using a lot of IKEA furniture for many years, some new, some secondhand (sometimes I'm the third or fourth owner) and I must say they're quite durable unlike some of the new furniture I've bought over the year and had to throw away.

I bought almost all my IKEA furniture second-hand. Many of them were taken apart and re-built 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years. Most of them hold up really well. I cannot confirm that IKEA furniture is not durable. It's mostly not hardwood, yes! Of course if you're not careful you can rip out a screw. But that screw or that board is usually easily replaced. And of course, IKEA also has cheaper and more expensive mod…

And not being hardwood is also good for the environment as hardwood takes much longer to regrow.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#199
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say most pieces of furniture sold these days are made of engineered wood [0], if that's what you mean by "composite materials". Aside from easier sourcing, I presume that a big driver of it's use is the fact that it is easier to shape and produce - no having to figure out how it will be assembled using the various sizes of timber available. The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive…

> The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive, or (somewhat ironically) unfinished. It's also super heavy, which I personally hate. Annoying to move in, move out, move around.

Ikea sells lots of stuff made out of softer solid woods that is probably lighter than the engineered material versions.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#200
post #23
post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

It's because they're fighting the arguably true reality that the majority of their furniture is designed to be disposable, and consumers are generally fine with that. I'd like to be wrong, though until we require companies to be responsible for all costs associated with the full lifecycle of a product so externalized costs are incorporated, we're not going to develop the most sustainable practices.

Not to pile on to the anecdata here, but I've owned a lot of different Ikea furniture over the years, and in the words of (I think) Douglas Coupland it's "semi-disposable."

Much of it will last a lifetime as long as you never disassemble it or move it further than the next room. Some of it is more fragile than that. Very rarely something is more durable -- here's looking at you, Klippan!

Post reply on HN