Why Adopt Sustainable Forest Management Certifications? Main Drivers in Italy and Germany

Abstract

In recent years, sustainable forest management has proved to be a crucial issue for forestry companies becoming more and more sensitive to environmental problems. This resulted in the inherent expansion in forest certifications formally promoting long-term environmental sustainability and a wider spectrum of forest ecosystems. In this context this study aims to assess the main motivations that encourage the adoption of sustainable forest management certification for PEFC and FSC standards and how these motivations vary depending on the characteristics of the companies. Specifically, online questionnaire surveys were submitted to a sample of Italian and German forest owners and managers considering five main motivational factors offered by the economic literature: three external mechanisms represented by the market, signalling and legal mechanism and two internal mechanisms consisting of the moral and learning mechanism. Results highlighted that the main drivers are represented for both countries by the reporting mechanism, in particular certification is seen as a tool to demonstrate externally the implementation of sustainable forest management practices. Other mechanisms that guide the intentions of forest owners and managers include the legal mechanism, in particular in the Italian case, especially for publicly owned forest areas, more driven by the interest of complying with forestry regulations and the moral mechanism, in the case of Germany. The implications of this research are seen in development of forest certification, through understanding forest owners' reasons for adopting it and providing background information to improve the design of certification programs to attract greater adoption by forest companies.