The people behind responsible wood sourcing verification at IKEA
At IKEA, wood isn’t just a material – it’s at the heart of creating a better everyday life. But this reliance on wood comes with a great responsibility: ensuring that our sourcing practices drive responsible forest management. Driven by the belief that we can use our operations to do a little more tomorrow than today, we constantly work to improve our business practices. Over several decades, we have built in-house expertise to verify and ensure that the wood we use is responsibly sourced.
An experienced global team
To ensure all our wood comes from responsibly managed forests, we have developed a comprehensive wood control system that requires our suppliers and the forests owned by companies under the IKEA brand to comply with legal requirements and to adhere to IWAY, the IKEA supplier code of conduct. In addition to third-party certifications and audits, we have a global team of auditors and raw material developers to uphold these standards. They support suppliers daily, perform regular wood supply chain audits, and collaborate with IKEA purchasing teams and external partners to drive the IKEA forest agenda forward.
Meet Maciej!
Maciej is an IKEA raw material developer based in Poland. He has spent years tracing the journey of wood from forest to furniture. Since joining IKEA in 2017, Maciej has been at the forefront of verifying the origin and species of wood used in IKEA products.
Maciej’s work takes him deep into sawmills and forests, where he cross-checks supplier records with real-world conditions. At sawmills, he checks legal documentation and ensures that wood has been harvested in line with national regulations and applicable forest management standards. At logging sites, he ensures that operations are independently certified and in line with local regulations and sustainability standards.
Meet Cristina!
As a sustainability specialist, one of Cristina's tasks is performing verification activities at our direct business partners and suppliers to check compliance with the IWAY requirements, which cover working conditions, human and labour rights, environment protection and responsible sourcing.
The compliance checks Cristina undertakes ensure that the preconditions for conducting the business are in place. Additionally, the audit visits are an opportunity both for IKEA and the supplier to check the robustness of the management system and verify its effectiveness. It is also a chance to exchange information regarding raw materials market dynamics, upcoming changes in requirements and new requirements, and their associated challenges and opportunities.
Unveiling nature's fingerprints
Did you know that trees, like fingerprints, carry unique markers based on where they grow? These chemical signatures are influenced by factors like soil, climate, and geography.
Blending technology and expertise
As an extra safeguard, IKEA is integrating rapidly developing wood tracing technology and forensic methods, such as anatomical, isotope, and DNA analysis, to verify timber origins and ensure compliance with IWAY, following a risk-based approach. The wood tracing process at IKEA combines cutting-edge technology with hands-on work. It begins with raw material developers reviewing supplier reports and flagging anything unusual. Once an issue is flagged, samples are collected and sent to specialised laboratories for analysis. The analysis confirms if the wood sample's profile matches the supplier's stated origin. If the analysis shows that the wood has a different origin from the one stated, the deliveries are stopped immediately.
By working with World Forest ID, a nonprofit organisation, IKEA has supported the creation of a global database of wood samples. Using this database, raw material developers at IKEA can analyse the chemical composition of any piece of wood and confirm its origin accurately.