By: Elise Zacherl

As we look behind the curtain of how affordable goods are made, we are increasingly forced to confront the ugliness behind our purchases.

There is a general consensus now that purchasing fast fashion, mass produced, and low cost clothing à la Zara, H&M and Penneys, is a decision that carries newfound weight. Unsafe working conditions, overconsumption of water, pollution and microplastics associated with the fast fashion industry coupled with ever decreasing quality of product has entered the public conversation pit. 

Consumers began to demand increased accountability, or at least acknowledgement of impact, from fast fashion retailers. Government market watchdogs began investigating false sustainability claims, and consumer attitudes increasingly softened to the idea of a ‘capsule wardrobe’ which features items that can be worn again and again, or to ‘deinfluencing’ videos explaining how poorly garments are made. 

The next reveal behind the mass production curtain? Furniture. 

The general shift towards hybrid and work-from-home policies and the spread of microtrends beyond clothing and into home furnishings come in the wake of the 2020 pandemic, bringing with them an increased demand for cheap, impermanent, instant furniture. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans discarded over 12 million tons of furniture in 2018, a 485% increase from 1960. In the 60s, however, discarded furniture was generally made of simpler materials. 

Today, the aim to keep prices as low as possible has pushed manufacturers towards less robust materials such as particle board, composed of wood chips and sawdust mixed with glue. Think of the classic white IKEA desks. This material cannot be sanded or refinished as it ages and cannot be recycled due to the mixed materials, making the journey to landfill inevitable. 

Over 50 years ago, Garrett Hardin, a biologist, published the incredibly influential essay The Tragedy of the Commons in Science. Hardin puts forward a simple parable: Herdsmen graze their cows in a shared pasture, but out of fear that the best grass will be eaten by another’s cattle, they all increase their herd without limit. 

Hardin sees this as an inevitability, with self-interest driving all individuals towards ruin, destroying the benefits of the shared resource. Despite being generally refuted on account of the author being a known eugenicist and white nationalist, this rhetoric has been the weapon of choice in the modern culture war dance we engage in with major polluters. 

Oil companies shifted from flat out climate change denial in the later 20th century, to the growing assertion that we all have a share of blame in the face of current environmental crises. In the context of fast furniture, this stance seems like the omnipresent threat to our scattered attempts to establish a circular economy. Direct to consumer furniture providers such as Wayfair and Amazon can shirk their responsibility so long as there is a framework which focuses on individual consumer behaviour rather than corporate accountability. 

However, the deflation of post-pandemic fast furniture sales has pushed certain retailers to reconsider their approach. Now aware of changing consumer preferences and the ever salient boycott approach in our morality driven internet discourse, there is greater economic incentive to convince us that flatpacks are sustainable. 

Leading the charge is fast furniture megagiant IKEA, which established its “People and Planet Positive Sustainability” strategy in 2012, promising to make all products from recyclable and renewable materials by 2030. Since then, their promises have expanded to cover the full breadth of the IKEA value chain and franchise system. Operating in over 63 markets with an annual revenue commonly exceeding €40 billion, the IKEA strategy has always depended on their global footprint. IKEA sources materials from over 1800 suppliers across 50 countries, signing long term contracts on the condition that business partners abide by their IWAY Code of Conduct. This ensures the lowest possible prices for consumers and peace of mind for IKEA, most of the time. 

Despite their best in class reputation, IKEA has battled continued scrutiny from environmental groups such as the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., regarding concerns about their wood supply chain. Wood sourced from protected forests in Ukraine, Romania and Russia has been traced to popular IKEA products as recently as 2024, but has avoided widespread outrage thanks to the general handwaving of IKEA conducted investigations which find no evidence of illegal wood. 

Scrutiny of the IKEA supply chain highlights the fundamental weakness of consumer labels such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). IKEA relies heavily upon this stamp approval to ensure the “highest available standard in industry” and consumers rely upon the FSC label as “the most trusted mark for sustainable forestry.” 

The FSC was founded following the failure of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to produce meaningful government intervention to control widespread tropical deforestation. FSC voluntary certification put forward thinking policies in place, encouraging environmentally and socially responsible practice from industry with the reward of a higher price tag if their product featured the FSC tree tick symbol. 

Some 30 years later, groups like the EIA say the FSC has had little to no effect on tropical deforestation. Reports by Earthsight, a UK non-profit, have shown that FSC certification violations have occurred in every forested region on Earth. 

Despite countless examples of unsustainable practices in FSC certified forests, the continued treatment of such scandals as isolated incidents has steered the conversation away from any meaningful structural reform leaving a fundamentally flawed organisation with the power to misguide well-meaning consumers at a premium price. 

Verifying the sustainability of complex, multinational raw material supply chains underlines the necessity of vigorous, independent systems that will credibly report information, a need that extends beyond the fast fashion and furniture industries. 

Voluntary certification schemes such as the FSC expel the responsibility to evaluate the quality and impact of a product squarely on the consumer. Governments must develop a comprehensive legislative framework to address supply chain issues and set rules that ensure no product presented to consumers comes from harmful practices, sustainability related or otherwise.