Ikea may be a green company in terms of its practices but, I cringe everytime a client or friend tells me about the great cabinets they are buying. In my professional kitchen planning view cabinets that can be dinged, banged, scrapped and NOT repaired, sanded or refinished or "future landfill" and waste. Ikea sells quite a bit of "ready to assemble" furniture and cabinetry that just does not have the 20 year+ life span of solid wood pieces. Is'n it better to build something that can be passes on to our children or a future buyer than to build an item that "ugly out" in 3 to 5 years and has to go in the garbage?

I just think Ikea is getting to easy of a "pass" because, they do such a great job at display and merchandising and do give the buyer such a great price point that fits many, many pocket books. We can do better though in making people understand value and a correlation between what they are buying and the "lifespan" of that product.