Analysis of Ethical Issue in Ikea’s Global Sourcing Challenge

Analysis of ethical issue in IKEA’s Global Sourcing Challenge

As we all know that IKEA was one of the largest specialized furniture retailers in the world. Its retail sales go up year by year while it also comes out some ethical problems: the environment and child labor. During the 1980s, some tests show that IKEA products emitted more formaldehyde than was allowed by legislation, which is harmful for people’s health. And it was even more severely challenged in the mid-1990s when accusations of IKEA suppliers using child labor surfaced.

In the early 1980s, a regulation was passed to define limits for formaldehyde in furniture products. As the prime target for investigating, IKEA was showed that the amount of formaldehyde exceeds the limits which are very harmful to people’s health. IKEA invested this environment problem and decided to work directly with the glue-producing chemical companies, finally reduced the formaldehyde off-gassing in its products. But during 1992, the problem return and this time the source is not glue but lacquer. This event causes IKEA to pay more attention on the environment problem.

The IKEA established policy to refuse any wood from the intact natural forests or from forests with a high conservation value, which means IKEA will trace all wood used in its products. In addition, IKEA identified four areas where environmental criteria were to be applied to its business operations: adapting the product range; working with suppliers; transport and distribution; ensuring environmentally conscious stores. Those methods are quite good for protecting the environment but the cost maybe will high so that not so much profit can be earned. I think we should advise the important of protect the environment and also could make some regulations, if anyone cut the tree which cannot be used, they will be punished and pay lots of payment.

Another issue is about child labor. In 1994, a Swedish TV found that children in Pakistan working at weaving looms....