Wood uses less energy to manufacture than other materials, and just by planting new trees it becomes an endlessly-renewable resource.

We don’t accept illegally-felled wood, or wood harvested from intact natural forests. We’re working with all our suppliers of solid wood to improve their ability to trace the origin of the wood they use.

Our long-term goal is to source all wood for IKEA products from forests certified as responsibly managed. Forest Stewardship Council is so far the only forest certification standard supported by IKEA. We also have our own forest specialists working in the field who inform, share knowledge and trace timber back to its origins at suppliers.

That's how we're working to have good wood – for today, and generations to come.

Four-step program

To do business with IKEA, our wood suppliers must follow a four-step program with requirements that grow more stringent with each successive step.

• Level 1 spells out basic requirements including providing the origin of the wood, ensuring the wood doesn't come from intact natural forests or forests with high conservation values.

• Level 2 requires that the wood be produced according to national and regional forest legislation, and that the supplier ensure the wood isn't from protected areas or restricted tropical and subtropical plantations.

• Level 3 compels suppliers to abide by IKEA standards which emphasize the use of wood-tracking procedures and other supply chain control methods.

• Level 4 calls for suppliers and other stakeholders to develop forest management standards certifiable by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Ensuring compliance through check-ups and audits

IKEA has foresters working in different locations around the world to check up on suppliers' compliance with our forestry rules. We also require all of our wood suppliers to complete our annual Forest Tracing System questionnaire, which asks for the origin, volume and species of all wood used in IKEA products. Based on the results of this questionnaire, we send our foresters to audit selected wood suppliers. A third-party auditor also conducts wood supply chain audits for IKEA.