business and government

Last Friday, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources decided to begin checking all IKEA stores. This decision was made in St. Petersburg at an extended meeting on the issue of violation of environmental legislation by IKEA-MOS LLC. Officials from the state control department of the Ministry of Natural Resources were alarmed by the fact that the company first built its store in the suburbs of St. Petersburg and put it into operation, and only then, after the fact, carried out its environmental assessment.
IKEA managed to build only three stores in Russia - in Teply Stan (Moscow), in Khimki near Moscow and the village of Kudrovo, a 20-minute drive from St. Petersburg. Now officials from the environmental department may visit each of these shopping centers. It was with such a visit to the IKEA store in Kudrovo that the scandal began between a large Swedish retail chain and the state control department of the Ministry of Natural Resources. This happened last November, about a month before the store opened. According to the head of the state control department of the Ministry of Natural Resources for the North-West, Sergei Yakutseni, the ministry ordered an unscheduled inspection of the construction of the ring road and adjacent facilities. The audit showed that the construction of the store was taking place without a positive environmental impact assessment, and the State Control Department ordered IKEA to stop construction. But it was impossible to fulfill such an order: the store had been built by that time.
The St. Petersburg IKEA shopping center was launched on December 12 with great fanfare. “At the press conference about the opening of the store, I had a positive environmental assessment in my hands. It was received, and there is nothing more to comment on,” Irina Vanenkova, head of the IKEA public relations department, told Kommersant. But the Department of State Control of the Ministry of Natural Resources considered the results of the examination invalid. According to the deputy head of the department, Oleg Nikitkin, the conclusion was received a week before the facility was put into operation, essentially retroactively, “so today no one knows whether the 20-hectare shopping complex is harmful to the environment or not.”
The Department of State Control of the Ministry of Natural Resources last December agreed with the management of IKEA on a new environmental assessment, which was to be carried out by independent experts before January 15, 2004. But during this period, IKEA did not sign a contract with any of the audit firms to conduct the audit. Last Friday, the issue of violation of environmental legislation by IKEA-MOS LLC was considered at an extended meeting of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Officials promised to suspend the operation of the St. Petersburg store if IKEA does not provide an agreement with an environmental auditor by January 26. And the director of the environmental audit chamber, Andrei Komarov, told reporters after the meeting that the Ministry of Natural Resources will now inspect all IKEA stores in Russia.
The officials' determination impressed IKEA. “On Friday we signed an agreement with one of the auditing firms,” Ms. Vanenkova told Kommersant yesterday. As for the inspection of stores in Khimki and Teply Stan, according to Irina Vanenkova, the company has not yet received official documents on this matter. Unofficially, the company says that officials simply do not have time to complete the paperwork at the pace at which IKEA is building its stores. Unofficial sources indicate that IKEA's problems lie not in its business, but in the political struggle for influence within the Ministry of Natural Resources. The fact is that environmental assessment is carried out by the department of state environmental assessment, and its availability is checked by the department of state control. According to an IKEA source, the struggle for influence between these two departments of the same ministry gave rise to the scandal around IKEA. This version is indirectly confirmed by the fact that, according to Mr. Yakutseni, a special commission of the Ministry of Natural Resources will soon begin an internal investigation in order to find out the circumstances of IKEA receiving an environmental assessment retroactively.
BORIS Kommersant-GORLIN, St. Petersburg

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 12/P dated January 26, 2004, p. 15

Themes:

IKEA activities

IKEA fell out of favor with officials