IKEA's policy is to adopt and apply the strictest standards found anywhere in the world to each specific component in their entire product range. So rather than seeing low environmental standards in a country as an opportunity to avoid responsibility for its environmental impacts, IKEA takes this as an educational opportunity to bring a higher level of awareness and understanding to the particular situation. Until recently, each of IKEA's trading regions has developed its own method of working with suppliers with respect to the environment. Now they are synchronizing and coordinating these activities, and one person has been made responsible for environmental coordination for IKEA trading. IKEA is not demanding that its suppliers be certified according to these standards but that they work toward continuous improvement with respect to environmental impact.
Transport is crucial to IKEA because it is a heavily transport-dependent company.
The complexity of transportation networks for a modern multinational corporation such as IKEA, and its manifold impacts on the environment, is quite extraordinary. Considering that IKEA has approximately 2,300 suppliers around the world manufacturing approximately 10,000 different products, with each product made of perhaps dozens of parts themselves made and shipped by dozens of sub-suppliers, the environmental ramifications are significant. And this is just from one company in a global economy of millions of suppliers, transporters, and users. It is easy to understand why decreasing the environmental impact of their transport needs is one of IKEA's fundamental goals. IKEA is clear that there are limits to what they can do to reduce their transport-related environmental impact.