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Popular Swedish-based home furnishings retailer Ikea announced this week the planting of two million trees throughout the U.S. In conjunction with American Forests, Ikea’s Plant A Tree program strategically targeted areas in need, including 74,000 trees planted in California’s Sequoia National Forest as part of the McNally Fire restoration.

“Forests are the most important land-based ecosystems on earth. IKEA’s commitment to planting trees makes a real difference, both for the health of our planet and its inhabitants,” said Scott Steen, CEO of American Forests in a press release. “We at American Forests deeply appreciate the partnership of IKEA and its customers in this important work.”

Introducing the Plant A Tree program back in 1998, Ikea has a long history of practicing sustainability, including an extensive solar panel initiative and being the first major retailer to stop all sales on incandescent lighting.

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For the environmentally  (as well as financially) conscious driver, electric cars are the only way to cruise. With California stressing greener cars and automakers making a concerted effort to bring more affordable electric vehicles to the public, the need for basics like charging stations are increasingly paramount. Even big retailers like Ikea and Walmart are getting onboard by adding said stations to their stores (the easier to shop inside, of course).

Now researchers at Stanford are working on a progressive system that would all but eliminate the need for charging stations by literally electrifying the roads we drive on. Using technology known as magnetic resonance coupling, the general idea is that metal coils would be placed in the actual freeway itself, creating a wireless transfer system that could literally charge an electric car’s battery as it drives.

“Our vision is that you'll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car," explained Shanhui Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering working on the project to the Stanford News. “Large-scale deployment would involve revamping the entire highway system and could even have applications beyond transportation.”

As exciting as the concept of electric highways charging cars as they drive might be, all I can thing about are those “applications beyond transportation” — like being about to charge my phone and laptop computer at the same time…

It’s a love/hate relationship many of us have with Ikea. Sure, they have functional furniture and home accessories for reasonable prices, and a surprisingly delicious food court. But it’s hard not to hate on their oft-remote locations, not to mention the infinite patience required to assemble “that damn night stand”.

The fines Swedes behind Ikea are well aware of it all. Which is why they’re going to such great lengths to offset the sizable carbon footprint their stores can create. After already doing so in Portland, OR and California cities San Diego and Carson, Ikea has upgraded their Costa Mesa location as the fourth in America to boost an EV charging station. While there is no timetable or locations yet determined, Ikea plans on upgrading another five of their stores in the western U.S. with EV stations.

It’s part of the company’s much larger plan of environmental consciousness. Over the past year, Ikea has expanded their American solar commitment to cover 75% of their stores, including the aforementioned Costa Mesa store and all locations in the southern United States. They even started shuttle services in some cities, and special home delivery for customers who reach their stores by public transportation.

While none of this make assembling that new night stand any easier, it will definitely help those who live in the vicinity of these Ikea stores literally breathe  a little easier.

Recently, we took a look at how you can go green when shopping for furniture. And while buying vintage pieces and investing in well-made materials is perhaps your greenest option, it’s not always the most practical. We get it – in a tough economy it isn’t always possible to invest a month’s rent into a table. So what to do when you’re faced with the eternal question: to Ikea or not to Ikea?

Let's look at Ikea’s green agenda. The store has launched a giant green marketing campaign to share their sustainability, touting their “never ending list” of improvements. The company does try to incorporate some sustainable standards for its wooden material.

The company started eliminating plastic bags from their stores in 2008. It also claims their products have strict standards on formaldehyde. And we do agree that their infamous flat-packaging is more carbon friendly to transport.

In 2010, Treehugger reported that Ikea of Sweden launched a free online platform for buyers to resell their used pieces. The site is meant to be a corporate-sponsored Craigslist of sorts. However, the site is only available for Swedish users. No word on if the company plans to expand it to include the United States. 

And what about the recent news story that California pregnant women have extremely high levels of fire retardant in their systems? The blame for these dangerous levels has been placed partially on the chemicals used to treat cheaper furniture. 

Last year, Ikea announced that they were phasing out the carcinogenic flame retardant chlorinated tris and replacing it with “an organo-phosphorous compound which gets incorporated into the polymer matrix of the foam filling.” But this rather vague explanation has left many still confused about the safety of this replacement chemical. 

Then there are the latest headlines for the company. Ikea was mostly recently made news when its U.S. factory workers decided to unionize. As The New York Times reports, “Employees at the Swedwood plant in Danville, Va., voted 221-69 to have the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers represent them in collective bargaining, union and plant officials said.” Further, “The union described working conditions at the Danville plant as akin to those in a developing nation.” Ikea countered to The New York Times that the Virginia plant operated the same as its Swedish plants, and that they had placed it in an economically depressed region of the U.S.

So should you shop at Ikea? The company has developed green initiatives, but it is still peddling cheap particle board. In the end, it depends how green you want to go.

Image: sethw/Flickr