Certified Forest Products: Perspectives from Industrial Consumers in Wisconsin

Abstract

A survey of industrial firms that regularly purchased wood products from a large, chain of custody certified sawmill (at the time of the study also Wisconsin's largest certified forest landholder) was conducted in 2003. Results were examined to: 1) provide baseline data on this topic from a region characterized as having a highly active wood products industry 2) ascertain the salience of environmentally certified wood products in this region and extrapolate the market implications this poses for other regions and 3) aid efforts to understand supply and demand implications for environmentally certified wood both in and beyond Wisconsin's borders. These companies, generally categorized as secondary wood products manufacturers, reported company perceptions and adoption trends regarding certified wood.Most industrial wood product consumers were not chain of custody certified. While wood product quality and price were found the most important sourcing criteria for this group, environmental certification ranked last.

An Examination of Forest Certification Status among Logging Companies in Cameroon

“…Six out of the seven (85.71%) FSC certified companies agreed that they are driven by ecological protection. For some forest certified companies, endorsing forest certification provides them with the satisfaction of supporting the sustainability of natural forest resources and more broadly society at large [ 34 ] and as such this may also serve to improve their corporate images and access to markets [ 35 , 36 ]. In connection to this, adoption of forest certification may be driven, in part, by firms being ethically and morally motivated to integrate environmental and social aspects into their marketing plans [ 37 , 38 ].…”