Corporate responsibility and sustainable competitive advantage in forest-based industry: Complementary or conflicting goals?

Linking forest ecosystem services to corporate sustainability disclosure: A conceptual analysis

“…different geographical regions and sectors of industries. GRI industry and sector specific supplements exist for some sectors, such as mining, but they are still lacking for the forest industry, despite many sector specific characteristics and expressed need in the previous literature (Li and Toppinen, 2011;Panwar and Hansen, 2007;Sinclair and Walton 2003;). We believe that the systematic development of corporate disclosure by applying an ecosystem services approach could contribute to the progress of forest sector reporting practices and most importantly, to the achievement of enhanced sustainable use of forest resources.…”

“…The rapid pace of forest industry globalization has triggered a great need for companies to acquire and secure operational legitimacy by regularly disclosing information of their sustainability related activities (Li and Toppinen, 2011). Forest enterprises are concurrently called at responding to several challenges, such as securing resource a base, meeting growing energy demand, globalization of 2 The concept of 'impact', 'dependency' and 'response' of economic sectors on ecosystem services has been introduced by several initiatives linking business and nature, such as the 'Approach for reporting on ecosystem services ' (GRI, 2011), the guidelines released in 'The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review' (Hanson et al, 2012) and TEEB Business (2012), as well as in scientific works (e.g.…”

“…Measuring and reporting about sustainability performance represents an increasing challenge to businesses of all kind, and previous research has focused on identifying gaps and challenges in current reporting practices (e.g. Lozano and Huisingh, 2011;Li and Toppinen, 2011;Rimmel and Jonäll, 2013), including incorporating meaningful qualitative and quantitative indicators; articulating the discussion on biodiversity, land and resources use; addressing the compartmentalisation and failure to acknowledge the inter-linkages between reporting of economic, social and environmental dimensions. In addition to the existing limitations of sustainability reporting practices, previous research has pointed out the need to promote development of standardized protocols for assessing biodiversity and ecosystem service related impacts and dependencies (Houdet et al, 2012).…”

Forest Company Dependencies and Impacts on Ecosystem Services: Expert Perceptions from China

“…Over the past few decades, Chinese forest companies have been under increasing pressures from both local-and global-level stakeholders to reduce their negative impacts on ecosystem services [25][26][27]. Control over environmental issues, such as climate change and water pollution, have progressively become key strategic variables for companies [28,29].…”

Trends in Markets for Forest-Based Products and Consequences for Selected Countries

“…A further factor driving change is that the forest-based industry is an environmentally-sensitive sector that plays a crucial role in global sustainable development, due partly to its unique renewable raw material basis, and partly to its ongoing globalization (Li & Toppinen, 2011). Hence, the increasing public interest and global consciousness of environmental and social issues have intensified pressures on forest-based product companies to balance conflicting stakeholder demands, and adjust their business strategies.…”