Impacts of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Forest Certification in North America

TLDR

The study aimed to assess whether forest certification under FSC and SFI has altered forest management practices and to compare the magnitude and nature of these changes between the two systems. Researchers conducted email surveys of organizations holding FSC certification in the United States and SFI certification in the United States and Canada to gather data on practice changes. Certification prompted substantial changes, with firms averaging 13–14 adjustments across forestry, environmental, social, and economic/system domains, and FSC firms made more environmental/forest management changes while SFI firms made more economic/system changes, and managers generally viewed benefits as outweighing disadvantages, indicating strong support for recertification.

Abstract

We conducted e-mail surveys of organizations that had received forest management certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in the United States and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) in the United States and Canada to determine if forest certification has changed forest management practices and if the changes are practically and statistically different between systems. The results indicate that forest certification prompted substantial changes in practices. On average, firms implemented 13–14 changes in forestry, environmental, social, and economic/system practices to obtain or maintain forest certification. Although there was no statistical difference between systems in the total number of changes, there were many differences in the implementation of specific forest practices, with FSC firms required to make more environmental/forest management changes and SFI firms required to make more economic/system changes. Forest managers believed that the benefits of forest certification were greater than the disadvantages. SFI managers rated the benefits of forest certification higher than FSC managers, but also rated the disadvantages higher. Most organizations felt certification accomplished their objectives and were likely to recertify, thus indicating their endorsement of the process.