When will IKEA see the light? No palm oil for candles and tea lights

fire in the forest at nightRainforest is being burnt down for oil palm plantations
28,684 supporters

IKEA’s cheap candles are a consumer attraction. There is, however, a reason for the low price: In order to sell cheap candles and tea lights, IKEA uses palm oil and palm stearin. The company is aware of the negative consequences for the rainforest. Nonetheless, IKEA uses 32,000 tonnes of palm oil for candle wax alone. Please call on IKEA to stop using palm oil for candle wax.

Call to action

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Read letter

IKEA makes high profits with their 267 furniture stores in 26 countries and an annual turnover of more than 21.5 billion Euros. With 18 stores, the UK provides one of the five biggest markets for the Swedish company. Their successful sales strategy relies on a strong price and cost calculation.

Besides furniture and equipment, the company sells life-style accessories including candles and tea lights. Vegetable oil and stearin is are amongst the main components of IKEA’s candles, as well as paraffin. Palm oil stearin accounts for the greatest proportion of vegetable oil, since it is currently 250 Euros per ton cheaper than the petroleum-based paraffin - thus allowing the company to charge greatly reduced prices for candles in their stores.

Each year IKEA uses 32,000 tons of palm oil for its candle production. 8,000 additional tons are needed for other products. Most of the palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. IKEA are aware of the problems linked to the use of palm oil. In communications with Rainforest Rescue, IKEA has surprisingly admitted that they cannot guarantee the sustainability of palm oil imports.

Unfortunately, this awareness has not so far led to an end to IKEA’s palm oil use for candle wax. Instead, IKEA refer to their membership of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO). However, the RSPO is a greenwashing initiative, which meets neither environmental nor social standards. You can read an International Declaration against RSPO and a recent Open Letter about the RSPO.

As a well-known market leader, IKEA could set an important example by refusing the industrial use of palm oil. There is no reason continue using palm oil. However, up to now the company has not signalled any course of action which would address the problem and despite their knowledge of the catastrophic consequences which palm oil production has for the producing countries, IKEA remains unimpressed. Please sign the letter below to call on IKEA to remove palm oil-based candles from their range of products.

Letter

Managing Director IKEA UK, Mr. Goeran Nilson

President IKEA USA , Mr. Mike Ward

Dear Sir,

I have recently heard that IKEA sells significant amounts of candles and tealights and that these products contain vegetable waxes and stearin derived mainly from palm oil. IKEA uses 32,000 tons of palm oil each year for this purpose.

In principle, I appreciate that IKEA has increased the use of renewable resources for their production. Unfortunately, the production of many of these renewable resources has been found to be problematic. Other vegetable fats and oils such as coco or soy are associated with similar problems as those found in the palm oil production and hence are no alternative.

Large areas of natural rainforest have been cleared to satisfy the increasing demand for palm oil; peat swamps are being drained drained, biodiversity is being irreversibly destroyed, indigenous peoples are being displaced and the global climate is heated up further as a result of massive carbon dioxide emission from deforestation and land degradation. The use of palm oil and the selling of palm oil-based products are thus not at all sustainable.

In your booklet “Responsible action” for society and the environment you state: “Low prices – but not at any price”. I kindly call on you to not only talk about high standards but to implement them. Palm oil might be much cheaper than other resources. However, the consequences for human beings, the climate and our environment are even worse.

In this context, the industrial label of the “Round table on Sustainable Palm Oil“(RSPO), to which you belong, offers no solution. This label does not adequately address the catastrophic consequences of palm oil expansion for indigenous peoples, the environment and for the climate. Many companies abuse their membership of the RSPO to greenwash their unsustainable production while continuing to clear rainforest for new oil palm plantations. For a recent declaration about the RSPO, please see: www.rainforest-rescue.org/news.php?id=1445

For this reason, I would ask you to change to candle products which do not harm rainforests and thus to stop the use of palm oil in IKEA products.

Yours faithfully,

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