NewPage Corporation announced today the upload of a new "On Paper" sustainability series podcast featuring Anders Hildeman of IKEA.
As global forestry manager for IKEA, Hildeman discusses the importance of responsible forestry management and the role IKEA plays through numerous associations to preserve forestlands worldwide.
IKEA, the world's leading home furnishings company with more than 300 stores in 37 countries, sources wood from close to 50 different countries to supply materials for their range of home furnishings products. "Wood is the soul of IKEA products," Hildeman states.
In 1993, IKEA became a member of the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC). Explaining the importance of FSC to IKEA, Hildeman shares, "The reason we've promoted and worked closely with the Forest Stewardship Council is that it allows stakeholder input to deciding the criteria for {forest} management. It's really not up to IKEA to decide how people should be managing their forests, but we would like to see major stakeholders agree on how they should be managed."
IKEA, along with NewPage Corporation and ten other business and world leaders, is a founding member of the Forest Legality Alliance, an international initiative designed to reduce trade in illegally harvested forest products, increase transparency in forest product supply chains and support global supply chain efforts to deliver legal wood and paper. The Alliance is currently developing a risk assessment tool that will help companies evaluate the risk of purchasing illegally harvested forest products including paper and wood.