Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
can only become a success if all activities in the chain are functioning well, each of
them adding value, with each of the stakeholders having his own benefits. We start
with the chain-of-custody stakeholders and in the next section will discuss the ben-
efits for the forest managers and workers.
At the end of the chain are the consumers and the general public, who are the
real drivers for certification. It is their choice of sustainable production and con-
sumption, which ultimately matters, and the certification of timber products is
instrumental in this. In Europe, in countries such as Finland and Austria, they are
close to reaching 100 percent certification of their forests but there is often still a
lack of demand by consumers (UNECE/FAO 2006). This explains why the poten-
tial supply of certified products still exceeds the actual demand in many markets
(ibid). In South-East Asian countries, both demand and supply are currently low.
The influence of the consumer may be direct or indirect. A direct influence means,
it is consumers who choose a sustainable product, whereas an indirect influence is
where they choose to go to a retailer who sells sustainable materials and products
(Udo de Haes and De Snoo 1996, 1997).
Retailers are the stakeholders who are upstream of the consumer, and product
certification is often primarily aimed at them rather than at the ultimate consumers.
It then becomes an instrument for business-to-business communication. The bene-
fits to the retailers are mainly related to the improvement of their image, thus sup-
porting their “license to operate”. They are often the prime movers in the value
chain (Klooster 2005). Examples of retailers involved in the selling of certified
timber include Ikea, Brico, Gamma, B&Q and The Home Depot, the world-largest
do-it-yourself (DIY) market.
On the next level are the manufacturers. Societal image is also an important
driver for them but these companies can also have a more specific aim, namely the
long-term assurance of their resources. This holds true for other natural resources
like fish. Thus Unilever contributed greatly to the establishment of the MSC, in part
to ensure the long-term availability of their fish resources.
10.4
Benefits of Forestry Certification - The Forest Managers
and Forest Workers
We can distinguish between three types of potential benefits of forest certification
for forest managers and forest workers, who form the main target group of this
chapter. Firstly, there are the direct economic benefits of potentially higher profits
for the forest managers. Secondly, there are indirect economic benefits, like market
access and sales agreements and thirdly, there are non-economic benefits.
The direct economic effects of certification are a rather ambiguous issue. The
main question is whether the public is willing to pay a higher price for certified
timber products. Such price premiums are logical and necessary to cover the costs
related to certification but they appear to be rather varied in practice. There are the
so-called willingness-to-pay studies, in which customers are asked what additional
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