forest certification eco-labeling programs and their ... · decision making processes that limited...

Forest Policy and Economics 5(2003) 225–247

1389-9341/03/$ - see front matter� 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.PII: S1389-9341Ž02.00060-6

Forest certification(eco-labeling) programs and their policy-making authority: explaining divergence among North American

and European case studies

Benjamin Cashore *, Graeme Auld , Deanna Newsoma, b c

Chair, Program on Forest Certification, Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry,a

Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 360 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511-2189, USAProgram on Forest Certification, Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, Yale University,b

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 205 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511, USATREES Program, Rainforest Alliance, Richmond, VT, USAc

Received 8 November 2001; accepted 28 March 2002

Abstract

In recent years, transnational and domestic non-governmental organizations have created private standard settingbodies whose purpose is to recognize officially companies and landowners practicing ‘sustainable forest management’.Eschewing traditional state processes and state authority, these certification programs have turned to the market tocreate incentives and force compliance to their rules. This paper compares the emergence of this non-state marketdriven (NSMD) phenomenon in the forest sector in eight regions in North Am40erica and Europe. We specificallyseek to understand the role of forest companies and landowners in granting competing forest certification programs‘legitimacy’ to create the rules. We identify distinct legitimation dynamics in each of our cases, and then developseven hypotheses to explain differences in support for forest certification.� 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Forest certification; Market instruments; Voluntary initiatives; Privatization of governance; Eco-labelling; Forestsustainability; Sustainable forest management; Environmental governance; United States; Canada; Europe; Forest sector; Marketaccess; Competitiveness

1. Introduction

In recent years, transnational and domestic non-governmental organizations have created privatestandard setting bodies whose purpose is to rec-ognize officially companies and landowners prac-

*Corresponding author. Tel.:q1-203-432-4001; fax:q1-203-432-3809.

E-mail address: [email protected](B. Cashore).

ticing ‘sustainable forest management’(SFM)(Meidinger, 1997). Eschewing traditional stateprocesses and state authority, these organizationshave turned to the market, soliciting the supportof customers of forest products in order to achievecompliance with their rules(Fletcher and Hansen,1999).This trend toward using non-state market driven

(NSMD) governance to address matters of concern

226 B. Cashore et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 5 (2003) 225–247

to global civil society has its roots in increasingeconomic globalization(Berger and Dore, 1996)and corresponding ‘internationalization’(Bernsteinand Cashore, 2000), where non-governmentalorganizations and international institutions haveoften acted to reverse the ‘downward’ effects ofglobalization on environmental, social and laborstandards(Vogel, 1995).Despite these forces for convergence, differenc-

es have emerged among domestic political strug-gles over which non-governmental certificationprogram gets the right to create sustainable forestmanagement rules. In particular, the support offorest land owners and forest land managers—those companies, individuals, and organizationswho must actually implement the certificationrules—has varied dramatically. In some regions,these ‘supply side’ audiences have committed topursuing the detailed, prescriptive performancestandards of the international Forest StewardshipCouncil (FSC) certification program, while in theother jurisdictions, supply side forest companiesand landowners have coalesced around the moreflexible industry and landowner initiated programsthat were created to compete with the FSC forrule-making authority. In other cases, a hybrid hasdeveloped.Given very similar global pressures for forest

certification, why have supply side actors in someregions chosen to support the FSC, while those inother regions have maintained firm support forcompetitor programs? The answer to this questionis important for the implications for forest man-agement in different regions, but also sheds lighton the conditions under which NSMD governancemay or may not gain long-term rule-makingauthority.This paper addresses the divergence question in

three steps: First, it reviews the historical contextbehind the development of certification programsand briefly describes the ‘legitimacy framework’we have employed in our comparative study. Sec-ond, it briefly reviews the methodological hurdlesin comparing certification legitimation dynamicsthat move across regional, national, and interna-tional bodies. Third, using a qualitative case studyapproach, we use the classification system to offera nuanced description of how forest owners and

forest land managers accept, or fail to accept, therules of a particular certification program in Can-ada (specifically British Columbia and the Mari-times), the United States(specifically the pacificcoast region, the south-east and north-east), theUnited Kingdom, and Germany.Fourth, we develop working hypothesis to

explain key divergence among the cases. Thecentral argument that emerges from this approachis that four related factors, together, explain thedegree of support the FSC and its competitorprograms achieved from supply audiences: aregion’s degree of market globalization, the degreeto which forestry practices in a region are seen asa ‘problem’ on the political agenda, the structureof a region’s forest industry(in terms of landownership fragmentation and industry concentra-tion), and the characteristics of the FSC’s compet-itor programs.

2. Historical context and emergence of forestcertification as a non-state marked driven gov-ernance system

The emergence and interest in non-state market-driven forest certification programs can be tracedto the economic and political trends in the last 10years in which market-oriented policy instrumentshave been given increasing salience domesticallyand internationally(Harrison, 1999; Rosenbaum,1995; Tollefson, 1998). Originally research oneconomic globalization found that increased capitalmobility, international trade, and foreign directinvestment appeared to reduce or constrain domes-tic policy choices, sometimes leading to downwardprotection in environmental and social standards(Berger, 1996: 12). However, other scholars notedthat a parallel process was taking place in whichdomestic policy arenas were facing increasingscrutiny by transnational actors, international rules,and norms(see Risse-Kappen, 1995; Keck andSikkink, 1998), sometimes leading to a reversal ofthe ‘downward’ effect of globalization(Vogel,1995), a process Bernstein and Cashore(2000)refer to as internationalization. Indeed, ‘interna-1

A similar definition was first offered by Doern et al.1

(1996).

227B. Cashore et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 5 (2003) 225–247

tionalization’ processes often get their policy influ-ence by using market-based boycott campaigns toforce upward governmental and firm-level environ-mental protection. Internationalization providedlessons to environmental non-governmental organ-izations(ENGOs) about the power in using marketforces to shape policy responses where efforts tochange policy were often easier than attempting toinfluence domestic and international business dom-inated policy networks. This recognition increasedthe salience of market-manipulation campaignsgenerally, but also of forestry specifically(Stan-bury et al., 1995).Non-governmental organizations’ interest in

market mechanisms in forestry also increased fol-lowing the failure of the Earth Summit in 1992 tosign a global forest convention(Bernstein andCashore, 1999, 2000). ENGOs felt that they hadspent significant effort and resources on state-sanctioned international fora with no discerniblepolicy gains. As a result, transnational groups, ledby the World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF)2

turned to the market for influence by certifyingforest landowners and forest companies, who prac-ticed WWF’s and other interest groups’ definitionof ‘sustainable forestry’, expanding the traditionalboycott campaign’s stick approach by offeringcarrots as well. These international trends weremirrored by increasing interest at domestic levelsas well (Harrison, 1999; Rosenbaum, 1995; Tol-lefson, 1998).The Forest Stewardship Council(FSC) itself

can be traced back to 1990, when, followingwidespread scrutiny of tropical deforestation, tim-ber retailers and distributors began looking forfiber from well-managed forests(Meidinger, 2000:4). Following 3 years of discussions, the FSC wascreated in Toronto, Canada in 1993 and becamelegally registered in 1995 in Oaxaca, Mexico. TheFSC originally created nine ‘principles’ and moredetailed ‘criteria’ that are performance based,broad in scope, including tenure and use rights,community relations, worker’s rights, environmen-tal impact, management plans, monitoring and

Although the acronym has not changed, The World Wide2

Fund for Nature changed its name from the World WildlifeFund in 1995 but the Canadian and US sections opted to keeptheir original names.

preservation of old growth forests(see Moffat,1998: 44; Forest Stewardship Council, 1999).Importantly, the FSC program required the devel-opment of regional or national working groupsgiven the task of developing specific indicatorsand verifiers with which to apply the principlesand criteria. This institutional dynamic is crucialbecause it directed many political struggles overcertification to the territories designated as anationalyregional working group. The FSC can beidentified with a conception of NSMD governancethat diverged dramatically from traditional clien-tele public policy processes, as it institutionalizeddecision making processes that limited businessinfluence, forbade government involvement in rulemaking, and developed wide ranging policyinitiatives.In all the cases under review in this paper,

introduction of the FSC program resulted in indus-try andyor landowner organizations developingtheir own NSMD programs to compete with FSCgovernance. These programs contained a verydifferent conception of governance, highlighted bya belief in business dominating rule making, anarrow policy realm, and broad, flexible policyoptions. Our task in this paper is to document thelevels of supply side support for FSC and alter-native programs at two points in time: ‘initial’support, when the FSC first emerged, and ‘current’support, which, in our project, ranges from autumn2000 to the autumn of 2001, and to explainchanges and regional differences.In order to facilitate comparison across an array

of national and regional settings, our study devel-oped a comparative heuristic that categorizes boththe types of audiences from which certificationprograms seek authority, and the different levelsof support these audiences give. To accomplishthis task, we use Cashore(2002) application ofSuchman’s(1995) seminal article on organization-al legitimacy, a subset of organization sociologyliterature. Suchman(1995: 574) defines legitimacyas:

«a generalized perception or assumption that the actionsof an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within somesocially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs anddefinitions.


Two sub-categories of legitimacy are central tothis paper.Pragmatic legitimacy rests on the ‘self-interested calculations of an organization’s mostimmediate audiences’(Suchman, 1995: 578), inwhich the material ‘well being’ of the legitimacygrantor is enhanced(Suchman, 1995: 589). In3

contrastmoral legitimacy reflects a ‘‘positive nor-mative evaluation of the organization and its activ-ities. It rests not on judgments about whether agiven activity promotes the goals of the evaluator,but rather on judgments about whether the activityis ‘the right thing to do...’’’ (Suchman 1995:579). Our cases below reveal that, arguably owing4

to the nascent nature of forest certification, mostfirms evaluations fell into the pragmatic legitimacycategory, with the choice over which certificationprogram to support, if any, a central theme. Onthe other hand, moral legitimacy granted to theForest Stewardship Council by environmentalgroups and other ‘core audiences’, played a keyrole in understanding how far the FSC could goin their efforts to achieve pragmatic legitimacyfrom supply side interests.

3. Methodological hurdles

Comparing NSMD legitimation dynamics inregions with different types of political boundaries(national and sub-national) comes with certaindifficulties. Likewise, the certification programsthat we are examining are also designed to act atdifferent levels: international vs. national vs. sub-national. The FSC, on the one hand, is international

The definition of pragmatic legitimacy falls outside exist-3

ing political science international relations work on legitimacy(for a review see Bernstein, 2001) which sees legitimacy asentailing a ‘logic of appropriateness’ supported by moral orcognitive dimensions, and which stand in contrast to rationalself-interest support for governance structures(March andOlsen, 1998).

Suchman and our broader study identified a third category4

of cognitive legitimacy, which is based neither on interests noron moral motivations, but rather on ‘comprehensibility’ or‘taken for grantedness’. In the former case legitimacy is givenbecause the actions of an organization are understandable, inthe latter case legitimacy is given because ‘for things to beotherwise is literally unthinkable’(Suchman, 1995: 583). Wefound no examples of this type of legitimacy in our currentresearch, and thus leave out this distinction for purposes ofthis paper.

in scope, but asserts the need for certificationbased on specific standards, which are developedat the nationalyregional level. Conversely, compet-itor programs have gone in the opposite direction:while they generally have domestic origins, sub-sequent developments saw them moving to aregional, or even international, scale. While theseissues raise methodological constraints—how doesone compare a country with a sub-nationalregion?—complex comparisons often yield morenuanced findings precisely because of this com-plexity. We address this in our comparison byshifting our research lens in and out, dependingon the region and certification program beingexamined.The cases that are investigated have two key

components that make them relevant to this study.First, they are all actively involved in the produc-tion and consumption of industrial wood and paperproducts. In some cases, the United Kingdom(UK) and Germany, higher reliance on importsexists, while in another, British Columbia(BC),exports are the driver of local production. SinceNSMD is based around market transactions andthe process of production, distribution and endproduct consumption, this variety of market con-ditions provides an important continuum of supplyside audience types. Second, given the emergingnature of NSMD, these cases are important, asthey were all early participants in forest certifica-tion, which gives us the opportunity to identifykey factors that lead to differing paths ofdevelopment.

4. The cases

This section of the paper describes the initialand current levels of support given to the FSC andcompetitor programs in each region. Our inductiveapproach revealed that, in contrast to the relativelystable ENGO support for the FSC, support byforest companies and landowners for FSC variedamong cases. Although the supply side audienceinitially gave legitimacy to the alternative programin every region, we observed a shift in BC andthe UK, where the supply side has increasinglylegitimized the FSC. See Table 1 for a summary


Table 1Type of legitimacy given by forest companies and non-indus-trial private forest(NIPF) landowners to the FSC and theFSC’s competitor program in our study regions. Bolded textindicates where changes from initial to current legitimacy haveoccurred

Case Time Forest companies NIPF landowners

FSC FSC’s FSC FSC’scompetitor competitorprograma program

British Columbia(Canada)Initial None Pragmatic Nya Nya

MoralCurrent Pragmatic Pragmatic Nya Nya

Moral

Maritimes(Canada)Initial None None None NoneCurrent None None None None

Pacific Coast(US)Initial None Moral None MoralCurrent None Moral None Moral

Northeast(US)Initial None Pragmatic None None

MoralCurrent None Pragmatic None None

Moral

Southeast(US)Initial None Pragmatic None NoneCurrent None Pragmatic None None

United KingdomInitial None Moral None MoralCurrent Pragmatic Moral None Moral

GermanyInitial Nya Nya None PragmaticCurrent Nya Nya None Pragmatic

The alternative program is the CSA in Canada, the SFI ina

the US, the PEFC in the UK, and the PEFC in Germany.

of initial and current legitimacy for the FSC andalternative programs in each region.

4.1. Canada

The case of forest certification in Canada illus-trates the way international, national and regionallevel struggles influence legitimation dynamics andsupport for FSC and its competitor programs. Thedecision by FSC to create regional standards bod-ies in Canada, and the Canadian Standards Asso-

ciation (CSA) to stick with one nationalcertification system in which individual companiescreated specific implementation rules, has meantthat only a regionalynational analysis can capturethe complex ways supply side groups have actedto support the systems.Once the FSC emerged in Canada in 1996, a

two-pronged approach was taken. A national officewas established to coordinate the FSC in Canada,while regional working groups in the Maritimes,the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence and BritishColumbia, took on the responsibility of developingstandards. Most of the political struggles haveoccurred within these regional processes, however,the presence of the FSC spurred the creation ofthe CSA forest certification program in whichindustry attempted to frame the certification debateas a national-level issue. Led by the CanadianPulp and Paper Association(CPPA), 23 industryassociations joined ranks to form the CanadianSustainable Forestry Certification Coalition. Thisgroup approached the CSA in 1994 to develop anindustry initiated Canadian forest certification pro-gram (Elliott, 1999). The process was completedby 1996, with the first successful certificationoccurring in 1999(Canadian Standards Associa-tion Sustainable Forest Management System,2000).The major role offered to the Canadian forest

sector in the development of the CSA programreflects the close relationship between the govern-ment and the forest industry. In the National ForestStrategy, the federal government proposed thefollowing partnership: ‘Industry and governmentswill work cooperatively to pursue joint technicaldiscussions aimed at internationalizing productstandards, codes and certification procedures’(National Forest Strategy Coalition 1997: 4–22).The portrayal of the CSA certification process asa partnership between government and industry,and its emphasis on using the CSA as a way tosecure market access(Elliott, 1999), led to mostCanadian forest companies granting it early prag-matic legitimacy. Environmental groups neverappeared to give any type of legitimacy. Thoughthere were some signs that ENGOs were consid-


ering granting pragmatic legitimacy, they quicklymoved away from such explorations.5

While these national developments were key toCSA legitimacy dynamics, FSC dynamics werelargely regional, and it is at this level wheredivergence in the acceptance of forest certificationprograms by supply side members is most clearlydemonstrated by our two regional Canadian casestudies. While ENGO support for the FSC hasremained relatively constant throughout the devel-opment of certification in both British Columbiaand the Maritimes, we have observed a shift inthe attitudes of supply side members in BC, whohave gone from strictly supporting the CSA pro-gram to the reluctant acceptance of the FSCprogram as what one industry official described as‘a cost of doing business’(personal interview).This shift did not occur in the Canadian Maritimes,where, on the contrary, the early support of FSCby the JD Irving company was later revoked.

4.1.1. British ColumbiaInitially, forest certification developments in

British Columbia showed striking similarities todevelopments in other regions: local and interna-tional ENGOs were quick to give the FSC regionalprocess moral legitimacy(i.e. they indicated thatthe FSC was consistent with their ideals), whileforest companies played a central role in thecreation of a competitor to the FSC, the CSAcertification program. Environmental groups basedin BC and international groups concerned over BCforest management were clearly excited about theprospects of increasing their influence on forestmanagement policy in the province. The supplyside, on the other hand, supported the nationaldevelopments of the CSA(mentioned above) as amorally appropriate and pragmatically appealingbody to develop a workable certification program(Lapointe, 1998; Abusow and Rotherham, 1998).At this point the BC forest industry believed thatit could handle the forest certification agenda ‘in-

Although the first CSA technical committee contained a5

broad membership encompassing many interest groups, ENGOsupport was minimal from the start, perhaps related to theunauthorized listing of two prominent Canadian ENGO exec-utives on the CSA technical committee, and their subsequentwithdrawal from the process(Elliott, 1999).

house’ using the CSA process(Paget and Morton,1999: 7), and that the CSA program would meetthe requirements of its buyers, avert boycott threatsand ensure international customers that ‘Canada isworking towards sustainability in its forests(ForestAlliance of British Columbia, 1996).’ Many com-panies announced early on that they were pursuingCSA certification and expressed skepticism aboutthe FSC process(Forest Alliance of British Colum-bia, 1997, 1998; Lapointe, 1998). Similarly gov-ernmental actors expressed strong concern aboutthe FSC(personal interviews).The initial patterns of industry support for cer-

tification programs changed dramatically in 1998:the exclusive support of supply side members forCSA quickly fell apart, as individual forest com-panies targeted by ENGO’s expressed interest inthe FSC(Stanbury, 2000). While not the first toannounce intentions to pursue FSC certification,the moves of MacMillan Bloedel to adopt a new‘green’ strategy, in which Greenpeace campaign-ers, at a highly reported press conference, present-ed then president Tom Stephens with champagne(MacMillian Bloedel Ltd., 1998a,b) are telling ofthe dramatic shifts that occurred within the supplyside. Overall, by 2001, many of BC’s large supplyside companies have expressed interest in the FSC(Stanbury, 2000; Hogben, 1998; Canfor Corpora-tion, 1999). Even the Forest Alliance, often criti-cized by environmental groups(Forest Alliance ofBritish Columbia, 1997), actually joined the FSC(Jordan, 1999), and the pro-timber industry IWAapplied for membership in the FSC. It has alsobeen reported that companies have provided directfinancial support to the re-kindled BC FSC work-ing group and its standards development team(personal interview). All these efforts appeared tofall under the ‘pragmatic legitimacy’ category.Companies still supported the CSA, and even lateran expanded SFI(American Forest and PaperAssociation, 2000b), but many recognized that itwas now necessary to shape FSC regional stan-dards and show some kind of support(Hogben,1998; Hayward, 1998; Hamilton, 1998), lest theybe targeted as environmentally unfriendly. Somegovernmental agencies appeared to alter their posi-tion on the FSC. For example, initial oppositionchanging, with some agenciesydivisions showing


signs of change. For example, the province’s SmallBusiness Forest Enterprise Program contractedPricewaterhouseCoopers to provide a gap analysisto determine how feasible it would be to becomecertified, not just under CSA rules, but also underthe more stringent FSC approach(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 1999).Interestingly, the increased involvement of the

BC supply side in the development of FSC BCregional standards has been met with skepticismby some BC ENGOs, who fear that the rigor ofthe standards may be in jeopardy. Although mostENGOs are still behind the FSC, moral legitimacymay be withdrawn if the FSC’s regional standardsno longer resonate with the goals of ENGOs.Overall these pronounced shifts in industry supportand potential shifts in ENGO support have set BCapart from many other regions in North Americawhere the FSC is still pursuing support from thesupply side while enjoying relatively unwaveringsupport from ENGOs.

4.1.2. MaritimesMaritimes standards development began early in

FSC history, with little national or centralizedregional guidance. Research conducted by Lawsonand Cashore(2001) found that local environmentalgroups, themselves products of anti-pesticide cam-paigns in the 1970s and 1980s, quickly gave FSCmoral legitimacy, hoping to influence certificationrules to embrace concerns they were unable toraise within traditional public policy processes.Aboriginal groups, also an important actor as asocial interest with specific and evolving rights toforested areas, gave the FSC pragmatic legitimacyand were active in developing its rules(Lawsonand Cashore, 2001).On the other hand, non-industrial private forest

(NIPF) landowners, who comprise roughly one-half of the forest land base in this region, weredivided in their support for FSC. A highly active‘anti-industrial forestry’ group gave FSC morallegitimacy and, like the ENGOs in the region,sought to create FSC regional standard rules thatwould fundamentally suit forest management inthe region. However, the vast majority of land-owners and other associations took a more typicalapproach, expressing strong concerns about the

influence of the FSC on their rights to managetheir property.Indeed, by 1996 many NIPF owners gave prag-

matic legitimacy to the CSA standards, resultingin many joining a certification market projectsponsored by the CSA(Lawson and Cashore,2001; Moffat, 1998).On the other hand, and mirroring many of the

cases under review, large and medium-sized indus-trial forest companies either favored no certifica-tion at all, or if they had to, gave reluctantpragmatic legitimacy to the CSA. Governmentagencies at both the provincial and federal levelswere disinclined to legitimate the FSC or the CSAat all.The one exception to these general patterns was

found with the region’s most significant industrialforest company, JD Irving Ltd, who activelysought, and obtained, FSC certification in theregion for some of its holding in the provinces(Elliott, 1999). Evidence indicates that this supportwas pragmatic in nature, as Irving felt it couldgain market access and recognition as a greenleader by being an industry leader and innovator(Lawson and Cashore, 2001). However, by thesummer of 1999, Irving’s initial support changeddramatically, removing its pragmatic support ofFSC. It gave back its FSC certificate and withdrewfrom participation in the standards developmentprocess, which changed significantly as the politicsover FSC regional standards became more intenseand polarized.The FSC case reveals fairly consistent positions

on the part of the key immediate audiences, illus-trating again that the supply side seems to be themost significant area of change in support forcertification programs. The ‘Irving exception’ tothese general patterns is also unique among ourcases because in this case a large vertically inte-grated company supported FSC relatively quickly,but later removed its support—thus moving in theopposite direction from the way industry movedin British Columbia.

4.2. United States

Similar to Canada, forest certification in the USis dominated by two programs: the FSC and the


American Forest and Paper Association’s(AF&PA) Sustainable Forestry Initiative(SFI)program. And like Canada, part of the certificationissue is a complex intersection of national andregional dynamics in which the SFI frames theissue as a national one in which companies aregiven flexibility in implementation of the rules,and the FSC, in which regional processes createregion–specific certification requirements that aregenerally more prescriptive and wider in scope.The regional–national intersection is importantbecause, as we will see, there are striking similar-ities among the level of supply side support forcertification programs in our three US cases.What is striking is that in all of the US cases,

nearly all members of the forest industry, organizedas the AF&PA, have rejected the FSC certificationprocess: companies have resisted FSC certificationon their own lands and have not participated inthe FSC standards development process in theirregions. NIPF landowners in all three regions areeither uninformed about certification or supportlandowner-run programs like the Tree Farm pro-gram (Coulombe and Brown, 1999). ENGO sup-port for the FSC has generally remained constantin all regions.Although the origin of SFI is actually earlier

than that of the FSC, the SFI’s ‘certification’ rolehas been categorized as a direct response to thecreation of the FSC program(personal interviews).The SFI program was originally created to addressthe polarized atmosphere that had developed inthe US over forestry issues in the late 1980s andearly 1990s. For analytical purposes, we treat the6

SFI re-creation in 1994 as its forest certificationorigins.Nationally, the SFI program initially enjoyed the

support of industry as a program to address publicconcerns about forest management(Wallinger,1995) and to increase the industry’s lobbyingpresence in Washington DC. The program’s prin-ciples were designed to focus on a combination oftraditional measures of ‘good’ forest management

The SFI was formally created after an AF&PA commis-6

sioned study revealed different perceptions on the part of civilsociety and industry about whether sustainable forestry wasbeing practiced(Wallinger, 1995), cited in Hansen and Juslin(1999).

(e.g. prompt and successful regeneration) and7

some broader environmental issues(e.g. cleanwater) (American Forest and Paper Association,2000a,d). The requirements set were viewed asquite similar to existing state regulations, so theprogram was deemed an appealing public relationstool for regaining public faith.Since the inception of the two programs, we

have seen the FSC gain pragmatic legitimacy fromthe demand side audience while remaining unsup-ported by the majority of the supply side. Thecreation of the North American Certified ForestProducts Council(CFPC) has been a major activ-ity of the FSC at the national level(World WildlifeFund United Kingdom, 2000). Membership in thisincludes high-profile companies like the HomeDepot, Lowe’s, and Kaufman and Board HomeCorp (Caulfield, 1999; Carlton, 2000). This sup-port appears merely to be pragmatic at this stage,as many of these companies have instituted pur-chasing policies, yet their implementation has beencharacterized as poor by some ENGOs(ForestEthics, 2001). Whether this demand side supportwill increase supply side support for the FSC isnot yet discernible.While the FSC has focused on regional stan-

dards detailed below, the FSC national office hasbeen undertaking increasing policy influence andlegitimation achievement strategies, movingbeyond coordinator to become a key source ofexpertise. Indeed, by the end of 2000, the nationaloffice was developing national guidelines in aneffort to head off industry criticisms that its stan-

In the 1999 SFI annual report the AF&PA state, ‘it is not7

enough to reforest harvested areas—it must be done quickly.SFI participants have successfully reforested, on average, 99%of the acres harvested under the SFI program within 5 years.In 1998, 59% of sites schedules for planting were replantedwithin 1 year; 98% were planted within 2 years(AmericanForest and Paper Association, 1999)’. While this is sold as anaccomplishment, its ecological value could be contested giventhat late seral and early seral stages are categorized as themost beneficial for wildlife habitat. In particular, the brushstage that may occur in stands that naturally regenerate afterdisturbance are removed from the succession process whenindustrial planting techniques are employed. So, while refor-estation is important, regenerating trees in the most expeditedmanner is not necessarily the most ecologically beneficialmanagement strategy.


dards varied among regions not for ecologicalreasons, but for political ones.

4.2.1. Pacific CoastInitial legitimation dynamics in the US Pacific

Coast generally converged with most other casesin this paper: ENGOs gave FSC moral legitimacy.ENGOs appeared eager to use FSC to force chang-es on private and state owned forest lands, whichcame on the heels of their successful efforts tosignificantly reduce harvesting on federally ownedforest lands in the region(Cashore, 1997, 1999;Hoberg, 2000). On the other hand, large vertically8

integrated forest companies in the region gavepragmatic legitimacy to the SFI program, which,as noted above, was designed to compete with theFSC in the US. Likewise, most NIPF landownersin the region either failed to support any certifi-cation efforts, or were attracted to the more flexibleTree Farm program. Indeed, members of AF&PAoperating in the region failed to become involvedwith the FSC regional standards working group.Participation was limited to certain smaller com-panies, and landowners such as Collins Pine andthe Hoopa Valley Native American tribe(ForestStewardship Council United States, 1998). Theirparticipation stood in stark contrast to the other-wise startling homogeneity of firm level responses.However, unlike legitimation dynamics north of

the border in BC, members of the AF&PA haveto date maintained their support for SFI, failing togive the FSC any type of legitimacy. Indeed, thecreation of the CFPC in 1997(World WildlifeFund United Kingdom, 2000), and well publicizedcommitments of large retailers and developers inthe US (mentioned above) to purchase certifiedwood conforming to FSC standards, has led onlya few companies and landowners to consider FSCcertification. The program has yet to gain inroadswith the regions larger operators.Both the integrated forest companies and NIPF

landowners were openly critical of the FSC region-al standards setting process, despite their ownboycott of these discussions. They argued that the

Indeed, an important subtext is that many environmental8

groups in the area did not want FSC to apply on nationalforest lands, as they feared that this might allow increasedharvesting in these regions(MacCleery, 1999).

initial draft standards surrounding reduced clearcuts and selection harvesting systems weredesigned for drier interior regions, rather than forthose operating in the temperate forest in thewestern part of these states. This illustrates the9

national–regional dynamic, as there is evidencethat concerns over these clear cut rules were acatalyst for the creation of the FSC regionalstandards harmonization process created at thenational level. The supply side audience explainstheir lack of support for FSC by pointing touncertainty surrounding how national harmoniza-tion will affect these regional standards and theambiguous support demand side purchasing poli-cies are offering the FSC. The latter being theconcerns for ENGOs as companies have not beenquick to implement policies favoring FSC wood(Forest Ethics, 2001).Other immediate audiences have played a less

direct role at this point. Governmental support forthe FSC in the region has been mixed. Some USnational forest service officials have expressedconcern that its lands have been exempted fromthe certification process, while others have raisedconcerns about FSC rules and procedures, mirror-ing critiques by professional organizations such asthe Society of American Foresters. At the stategovernmental level there is a split between forestmanagement agencies whose procedures follow amore flexible approach(at least in Oregon andWashington), and those who lead more conserva-tion-focused agencies who have expressed an inter-est in having state-owned land FSC certified(Price, 2000).In the US Pacific Coast we observed clear

legitimation dynamics, with FSC maintaining mor-al support from ENGOs, pragmatic from nationalretailers and some lumber dealers, and SFI main-taining pragmatic and arguably moral support fromlarge vertically integrated forest companies. Land-owners either failed to support certification at all,or opted for an FSC competitor program gearedtoward the NIPF landowner.

This inequity was reported as a point of debate among9

participants in the regional standards process: there were evendiscussions of splitting the region to better capture the differentecosystems in drier southern interior forests and the wetternorthern coastal forests.


4.2.2. North-eastUS north-east legitimation dynamics largely

played out in similar ways to experiences in thePacific Coast and the south-east. In the earlystages, many large industrial firms, especially pulpand paper producers, did not see any potential forcertification at all, and feared the FSC’s disclosurerequirements and prescriptive rules process. Oncethe idea of certification was seen to be takinghold, most AF&PA members supported makingSFI a condition of their membership as a way ofcountering the FSC. Thus, most large forest com-panies gave pragmatic legitimacy to the SFI, whileENGOs gave moral legitimacy to the FSC. On theother hand, some small-to-medium-sized timberbrokers and specialty wood-products manufactur-ers joined the FSC process, seeing both pragmaticreasons to participate in niche markets by differ-entiating themselves from larger suppliers(Lawsonand Cashore, 2001).There were notable exceptions to the overall

support of industrial forest companies for the SFI,for instance a Maine forest products company,Seven Islands sought and received FSC certifica-tion for its operation. And as in the Maritimes, themost marked initial support for the FSC camefrom JD Irving—and unlike its experience in theMaritimes, Irving has maintained its FSC commit-ment in this region, owing to more industry friend-ly FSC regional standards(Lawson and Cashore,2001).Few companies have joined the Irving and

Seven Islands approaches. Instead, industry hasworked towards enhancing the credibility of theSFI in the region. For example, the Maine SFIcommittee worked with the Maine Forest ProductsCouncil to expand the role of the SFI, increasingthird-party SFI certifications, setting minimum cri-teria under such certifications, and created anexpert panel at the local level that would reporton such certifications to the legislature(Lawsonand Cashore, 2001). Partly as a result, increasedENGO efforts to expand the FSC in this regionhave failed, mirroring broad national trends.

4.2.3. South-eastOwnership and management of forest lands in

the US South are generally conducted by two

distinct groups, with vastly different levels ofknowledge about and involvement in forest certi-fication: industrial forest companies, who managea large proportion of Southern forest lands andvirtually unanimously support the SFI program,and NIPF landowners, who generally know verylittle about forest certification(Newsom et al.,2002). Industrial forestry operations in the south-east rely on non-industrial private landowners for60% of their raw materials(Hyde and Stuart,1998)Due to the national nature of the SFI and the

regional nature of the FSC, the two programsdeveloped in the south-east with relatively littleinfluence on one another. Both the SFI programand FSC US south-east working group were devel-oped in 1996(Wallinger, 1995; The Forest Man-agement Trust, 1999). Although all members ofthe AF&PA are obligated to participate in the SFIprogram, the degree to which southern AF&PAmembers gave moral legitimacy to the SFI appearsambiguous. Interviews conducted in the US south-east with key US forest company officials indicatethat, although an element of moral legitimacy inthe basic approach taken by the SFI may haveexisted, it appears that most SFI members in theregion saw the program as a pragmatic marketingand educational tool from its very inception. NIPFlandowners have generally not yet entered thecertification debate in the south-east.The FSC south-east working group gained moral

legitimacy from regional environmental groupsthrough its focus on minimizing the spread ofplantations and other industrial forestry practices,but failed to get participation by members of theforest industry (Humphries, 1999). Interviewsindicate that the refusal of virtually all south-eastern forest industry members to participate inthe FSC standards-development process was aconscious decision: internal sanctions within theindustry were used against one company thatexpressed interest in participating(personal inter-views). The company in question eventually with-drew from the FSC regional process. In the absenceof forest industry participation, the FSC standardssetting team recruited the help of professionalforesters to bring a ‘realistic touch’(personal


interview) to the process and act as a proxy forthe voice of the forest industry.The FSC still faces entrenched opposition to its

program in the south-east, mainly from the largeindustrial supply side actors. Those NIPF land-owners that are aware of the certification issueconsider local or state-level initiatives most appro-priate, and give legitimacy to initiatives like theTree Farm program, which is specifically run byand tailored to NIPF landowners(Newsom et al.,2002). Some NIPFs appear to give pragmaticlegitimacy to the certification concept as potentialprotection against more stringent public policy(personal interview). Despite reports of having feltpressure from some national-level buyers groupmembers(personal interviews), most large indus-trial members of supply side, with the exceptionof the Anderson-Tully Company(FSC US, 2001),are currently maintaining a strong resistance to theFSC, as are their counterparts in other regions ofthe US.

4.3. Europe

Two programs dominate forest certification pol-itics in Europe: the FSC and the Pan-EuropeanForest Certification(PEFC) program. When theFSC made headway in Europe in the mid 1990s,supply side interests in the UK and Germany,supported by their respective state agencies, pro-posed labels of origin as a means of counteringthe FSC approach. The ‘local grown’ certificatewas called the FICGB Woodmark in the UK(Forestry Industry Council of Great Britain, 2000;Kiekens, 1997) and theHerkunftszeichen, or ‘labelof origin,’ in Germany(Klins, 2000). Generallythere was agreement between the government andthe forest sector that FSC certification was unnec-essary given the extensive and rigorous set of stateregulations(Forestry Commission, 1998) (Person-al interviews). Their view of the FSC was that ithad an environmental bias, a top down decision-making structure, lacked accountability, and wastotally unnecessary in countries where governmentregulations were, they felt, more than sufficient.The PEFC program was conceived in 1998 by

forest companies and private forest owners in sixEuropean countries, including Germany(Hansen

et al., 1999). Although the PEFC has become aEurope-wide initiative with 15 members(includingthe UK) and an overarching set of principles,based on the Helsinki Criteria, developments with-in this program are still occurring mainly at thenational, not European, level. Each member coun-try proposes its own set of standards, which arethen evaluated by the European PEFC office, and,if they conform to the requirements, are accepted.The member’s countries have their own nationaloffice, and much autonomy in terms of the devel-opment of national auditing system. Like the FSCnational working groups, each national PEFCoffice is not constrained by its international frame-work when it comes to national-level political orstrategic decision-making. This national focusallows us to examine each of our European casestudies separately, without the problems of scaleassociated with our other cases.

4.3.1. United KingdomTwo opposing forces similar to those present in

Germany and in North America shaped initiallegitimacy dynamics in the UK. On the one side,a local industry, composed of NIPF owners andprocessors in concert with the government, stoodbehind existing forest regulations, defending theirhistory of ensuring ‘good’ forest management.Representing the interests of local producers, theFICGB and the government’s Forestry Commis-sion established the FICGB Woodmark(mentionedabove) (Kiekens, 1997). With the addition of anew government felling license, this program wasable to ensure that ‘wood(products were) derivedfrom British grown timber and that the tree wasfelled in accordance with official government reg-ulations(Forestry Industry Council of Great Brit-ain, 2000).’The opposing force was a coupling of environ-

mental groups and members of the demand sideaudience who gave moral support to the interna-tional FSC program. The WWF and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) retailer chain, B&Q, were twoimportant supporters that saw the management oftropical forests as a key issue of concern(Vianaet al., 1996). With the addition of a number oflocally focused environmental groups, the FSCregional standards process was supported as an


important starting point for attaining global forestsustainability(Tickel and World Wildlife Fund forNature, 2000). These groups were not satisfiedwith ‘local grown’ labels, since tropical timberimports often came with dubious sustainabilityclaims (Global Witness, 1999). Only an interna-tional process independent of government wasperceived as a credible and morally appropriateoption to ensure the procurement of sustainableforest products.Subsequent events provoked a significant

change in the polarized views on certification;arguably, certification has become an acceptedreality and has been deemed morally appropriateby most of the immediate audience(Tickel andWorld Wildlife Fund for Nature, 2000). However,the legitimacy dynamics are complex. The keyelement of this shift was the UK, WoodlandAssurance Scheme(UKWAS), which was a gov-ernment-facilitated process independent of the FSCthat successfully merged the draft FSC GreatBritain standard with the government’s UK For-estry Standard(Goodall, 2000). UKWAS repre-sents a compromise that achieved moral supportfrom all members of the immediate audience. Yet,it is merely a standard rather than a certificationprogram(UKWAS Steering Group, 2000) and itsmoral legitimacy has not been automatically trans-ferred to the FSC. Only the environmental com-munity and the government are giving morallegitimacy to the FSC. The WWF 95q group hasincreased its membership, however, not all mem-bers are purely specifying FSC wood, and evenB&Q, an original participant in the creation of theFSC, has begun to consider alternative sources ofcertified wood(Knight, 2000).The processing sector has framed the debate in

pragmatic terms. At present, FSC is the bestalternative available; however, manufacturers andmanagers have expressed openness to other alter-natives if their clients demand them. NIPF land-owners are the least supportive of certification andtheir persistent mistrust for the FSC has provokedinterest in the landowner-initiated PEFC programin Europe. The recently incorporated PEFC UKLimited hopes to gain access to the UKWASstandard(Pan European Forest Certification UnitedKingdom, 2001); however, this has been prevented

through the veto of certain members of theUKWAS steering group(Yull, 2000, 2001).

4.3.2. GermanyAlthough the roots of forest certification were

already present in Germany in the late 1980s,when boycotts of tropical wood were promoted byGerman environmental groups, certification wouldnot directly impact domestic forest landowners andmanagers in Germany until nearly a decade later,in 1996. At that time, pressure for certification hadspread from tropical to temperate ecosystems, andforest certification programs such asNaturlandand eco-timber had been created by German envi-ronmental groups, including Greenpeace andNABU (Klins, 2000). The German Forestry Asso-ciation (Deutscher Forstwirtschaftsrat), (made upof state forestry agencies, forest products associa-tions, private landowner associations and academ-ics), and private landowners rejected those labels,saying that they were inappropriate for Germanland ownership patterns, which saw 45% of forestland owned by private individuals or enterprises(more than 75% of which own less that 5 ha), and55% of forest lands managed directly by state andmunicipal agencies(Bundesministerium fur Ernah-¨¨rung Landwirtschaft und Forsten, 2000). Instead,the forest sector chose to create its own labelingprogram, theHerkunftszeichen, or ‘label of origin’,in 1996, which was available to all German forestowners(Klins, 2000).When the German FSC working group was

created in 1997, the forest sector reacted by work-ing with other landowners and managers through-out Europe to create its own label, the PEFC,which was created in June 1998 and based on theHelsinki Criteria of the 2nd Forest Ministers Con-ference in 1993(Hofmann et al., 2000). While theFSC had early buy-in from all major ENGOs,forestry labor unions, and a handful of forestlandowners, state agencies and municipalities, thePEFC, with its systems-based standards and strongvoice for private landowners, had broad supportfrom nearly all private and state landowners.Although this support has a moral element, giventhe PEFC’s recognition of the long tradition ofsustained yield forestry in Germany, the PEFC ismainly given pragmatic legitimacy, because forest


land managers want to maintain their marketaccess, and came to believe that in the absence ofa competitor program, the market might force themto adopt FSC. Thus, the PEFC is almost seen asthe lesser of two evils: one PEFC supporter evencalled the PEFC ‘the certification program thatnobody wants’ (personal interview). This casereveals the importance of understanding how legit-imacy granting for one type of NSMD certificationprogram may affect the legitimacy of a competitorprogram.Since the PEFC’s creation, the forest sector’s

support for the PEFC has not changed significant-ly; if anything, early patterns of support havebecome more ingrained and two distinct andincreasingly polarized factions—the FSC with itsENGO supporters and the PEFC with its landown-er and state supporters—have emerged. Recentattempts at mutual recognition were unsuccessfuland formal communication between the two pro-grams was recently ended by the FSC(FSCGermany, 2001).Table 1 summarizes the developments described

in the previous seven case studies by showing theinitial and current type of legitimacy given byforest companies and landowners to the FSC andcompetitor programs. Again, significant areas ofdivergence become visible, which are shown inbold type: the level of forest company support forthe FSC changed from ‘none’ to ‘pragmatic’ inboth the BC and UK cases. In all other regions,legitimacy has remained stable. Why do weobserve change in BC and the UK, and stabilityelsewhere? Which independent or intersecting fac-tors propelled these supply side audiences toembrace the prescriptive, broad ranging rules ofthe FSC? Our attention now turns to offering anexplanation for the divergence observed in Table1.

5. Explanatory variables

This section seeks to account for the differencesin supply side audience decisions across theregions—namely why some forest companies andlandowners would maintain resolute opposition toFSC certification programs(usually giving FSCcompetitor programs strong pragmatic and in some

cases moral legitimacy), while in other regionscompanies and landowners have begun to acceptFSC authority and started the process of seekingcertification with this program.We draw on existing globalization, public policy

literature, as well as our own observations of thecases to develop seven working hypotheses thatfall under four interrelated factors:(1) the degreeof a region’s dependence on foreign markets;(2)the extent to which forest management is seen asa ‘problem’ on the political agenda;(3) the struc-ture of the supply side; and(4) the character ofthe FSC’s competitor programs. These factors,through both their independent and intersectingeffects, help us to understand why the FSC hasgained differing levels of supply side legitimacyin each region.

6. Degree of dependence on foreign markets

Much of the research on globalization and policyconvergence has pointed to the susceptibility of aregion to global and transnational pressures whenit relies on foreign markets for the source of itsproducts (Berger and Dore, 1996). One of thecentral ideas behind this argument is that it iseasier for transnational actors to raise concernabout a firm’s behavior when that firm is outsideof the political system in which it operates. Therecan be no charges of breaching territorial ‘sover-eignty’ (Bernstein and Cashore, 2000), nor dothose exerting pressure have to be wary of domes-tic consequences of their actions. These ideas leadto our first preliminary hypothesis to explaindivergence:

Hypothesis 1. Supply side companies in a regionthat sells a high proportion of its forest productsto foreign markets will be more susceptible todemand side manipulations by the FSC and itssupporters.

This hypothesis helps account for divergenceamong our cases because it addresses those heavilyexport oriented regions in which ENGO efforts toforce change have been directed toward non-domestic purchases of the products. If this hypoth-esis has merit, it should most certainly help explain


legitimation dynamics in the province of BC, sinceit fits the description of an export oriented regionin which transnational groups have gone to non-domestic purchasers of their products. We see bothindirect and direct support for this hypothesis.Indirect support comes from dynamics that

occurred before certification but followed the samelogic. From the beginning of the 1990s supply sidecompanies in BC, particularly coastal producers,were under market pressure, first from boycottcampaigns(Greenpeace International, 1993) andthen later from demands for FSC certified wood(Greenpeace UK, 1998). In both instances,ENGOs pressured demand side companies inEurope and the US to terminate their contractswith companies operating in BC(Vertinsky et al.,1997; Stanbury, 2000). It was evident that BCcoastal producers felt the heaviest impacts of thesepressures, which were made worse by the limitedUS market access, owing to the 1996 Canada–USSoftwood Lumber Agreement, and Asian econom-ic woes peaking in 1998(Taylor and van Leeuwen,2000; Stanbury, 2000). This made Europe—a rel-atively small market for BC products—appeargreatly important, as other alternative markets wereinaccessible. As Bernstein and Cashore(2000)noted, going international allowed demand sidemembers that had been operating in Canada, ormore specifically, BC, to avoid national politicalbacklash.The BC forest industry attempted to counteract

the demands of their international buyers, but withlittle success. BC’s main forest labor union, theIWA, even mounted counter boycotts against com-panies that proposed terminating contracts withBC firms (Stanbury, 2000). However, with nostake in the domestic political ramifications of abuying policy specifying FSC wood, these inter-national demand side companies appear to havebeen quite malleable to the demands of EuropeanENGOs.Direct support for this hypothesis is found in

ENGO efforts to have retailers such as HomeDepot in the US announce policies for FSC wood.This announcement had a discernible impact onBC, which imports most of its forest products tothe US: many companies in BC announced theirintention to become FSC certified following the

Home Depot announcement. In line with thishypothesis, the announcement had much more ofa direct effect on forest companies in Canada thanin the US. The Home Depot announcement in theUS simply appeared to galvanize and reinvigoratesupport for the SFI, whose supporters believedthat they could alter Home Depot’s approachthrough a highly strategy domestic campaign.While more research needs to be done into other

similar cases, preliminary evidence indicates thatcompanies operating in export-oriented marketsand are the target of transnational campaigns tohave purchasers adopt FSC wood are more likelyto grant FSC pragmatic legitimacy.

Hypothesis 2. Supply side members in a regionthat imports a large proportion of its forest productswill be more susceptible to demand side FSCmanipulation strategies within its own borders.

When the supply side in a region is small andcannot produce the volume of forest productsrequired to meet local demand, it becomes suscep-tible to competition from FSC imports. This wasobserved in the UK where the supply side respond-ed to the combination of domestic demand forFSC, and increasing international competition. In1999, the UK was the least self-sufficient EUcountry in terms of wood production capacity and,internationally, placed second behind Japan interms of net value of wood products imported(Forestry Industry Council of Great Britain, 2000).When B&Q issued an ultimatum to it suppliersthat by the end of 1999 it intended to purchaseonly FSC certified wood, local processors werenot exempted(Stanbury, 2000; National HomeCenter News, 1998; DIY, 1998). And becausecompetition from FSC-certified in suppliers Swe-den was increasing and the potential that countriesin the Baltic States, such as Latvia and Estonia,would follow suit(Tickel and World Wildlife Fundfor Nature, 2000; Hansen and Juslin, 1999), localproducers recognized their market share was injeopardy. This solidified the pragmatic appeal ofthe FSC, as it was a logical way to meet customerdemands and maintain market share. The fear ofincreased competition from international suppliersof FSC wood also exists among the supply side


members in Germany, who sell most of theirproducts domestically; however, these suppliershave not yet felt the combined effects demandsfor FSC wood and increasing international com-petition (personal interviews).In sum, the use of the international market

appears to have been salient for the FSC’s successin gaining BC and UK supply side pragmaticlegitimacy, which highlights the importancedependence plays in determining the success orfailure of market manipulation strategies. Overall,the lack of market diversity—either as an exporteror domestic supplier—and openness to the inter-national markets appeared to be key interveningfactors that motivated the shift in supply sidelegitimacy in both these regions.

7. The extent to which forest management issuesare seen as a ‘problem’ on the policy agenda

In the traditional public ‘policy cycle’, a prob-lem is brought to the government’s attention,policy options are formulated, and a particularcourse of action is put into effect and monitored(Howlett and Ramesh, 1995). When controversialforest management practices or issues have reacheda region’s policy agenda, supply side membersmay choose to rely exclusively on the govern-ment’s solutions, or may choose to take independ-ent action to avoid potential controversy andaddress the issue. We would expect to observe thistype of action especially in an internationalizedsector such as forestry, where trans-national envi-ronmental groups have the resources and expertiseto publicize controversial issues quickly. We pro-pose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3. Supply side companies are morelikely to give the FSC pragmatic legitimacy whenforestry practices are perceived to be a majorproblem on the governmental policy agenda. Thestrength of this relationship is heightened whengovernmental initiatives have failed to remove theissue as a perceived problem.

In each of our study regions, the appropriatenessof certain forest management practices, to some

extent, were an issue on the political agenda. Yetin particular instances these issues reached aheightened prominence that forced supply sidemembers to find solutions to controversies them-selves, even after governments had sought todevelop public policy solutions. To the extent thatthe perceived problem is a threat to profits or aloss of ‘social license’, we expect that supply sideaudiences will give pragmatic legitimacy to theFSC.The BC case provides support for this hypoth-

esis. There, both domestic and international civilsocieties were well aware of the global significanceof BC’s few remaining coastal temperate rainfo-rests. Documented evidence pointed to a historyof mismanagement(Tripp et al., 1992; Tripp,1994), which was closely linked to criticism ofexisting public policy(Wilson, 1998; Marchak etal., 1999). Initially the provincial government act-ed independently to develop an internationallydefendable Forest Practices Code(British Colum-bia. Ministry of Forests, 1996) and associated landuse planning process(British Columbia. IntegratedResources Planning Committee and Ministry ofForests, 1993; Wilson, 1998) and the federal gov-ernment acted, in concert with industry, to backthe CSA(Elliott, 1999). However, the salience ofthe ecological crisis increased in fervor as ENGOsin North America and Europe continued to pressfor changes(Greenpeace UK, 1998; Stanbury,2000). Finally, when MacMillan Bloedel, one ofthe hardest hit forest companies, released its ForestPlan, certification was one component of a seriesof reforms tailored to address deep-seated concernswithin civil society (MacMillian Bloedel Ltd.,1998a,b); as a solution, this move went beyondwhat was required by public policies. The persist-ence of the perceived ‘ecological crisis’ can beviewed as a key element of this shift, which hasbeen absent from the other cases we have studied.In the UK and Germany, supply side buy-in to

the FSC was not associated with a specific domes-tic ecological issue but rather concerns abouttropical and temperate rainforests. Both countriesimport large amounts of wood from these types ofecosystems(Forestry Industry Council of Great


Britain, 2000; European Forest Institute, 2001).10

Hence, the perceived ecological crisis was thedeforestation and the associated loss of biodiversityoccurring in these forests. Morally implicated bytheir dependence on imports, ENGOs in bothregions responded with campaigns for the adoptionof a certification standard domestically, to ensureinternational parity in their demands: in the UK,the standard became the FSC for reasons discussedin the previous section, while in Germany, thePEFC was seen as adequate. In the US south-east,the proliferation of pine plantations and the result-ing loss in biodiversity is considered a problem bymany regional ENGOs: the number of acres insouthern pine plantations increased from less thantwo million acres in 1952 to over 24 million acresin 1992, and is expected to continue increasing(Hyde and Stuart, 1998). However, this problemhas not reached a crisis level among the generalpublic, and has not, therefore, had market or sociallicense implications for supply side members there.It appears that the persistence of an ecological

problem and demands that it be addressed heightena company’s search for solutions, which in the BCcase, involved FSC certification. By conformingto the moral ideals of domestic and internationalENGOs the FSC has been able to offer a ‘wayout’ for forest companies that were under cam-paign scrutiny. Unlike the traditional state-centeredpolicy responses to ‘ecological crises’, the FSCoffered a set of standards endorsed by both domes-tic and international ENGOs that indicated to civilsociety that a solution was being pursued.

8. Structure of the supply side in a region

By understanding the way that forest lands aredistributed, and the avenues through which themanagers of those lands relate to each other, weare able to build an understanding of the motiva-tions companies might have for participating in acertain forest certification program. The following

Six percent of UK softwood sawnwood and 15% of its10

pulp imports in 1997 were of Canadian origin(ForestryIndustry Council of Great Britain, 2000), and of its tropicalimports 90% were reported to come from Brazil, Indonesia,and Malaysia(Matthew, 2001).

two hypotheses are an exploration of thisrelationship.

Hypothesis 4. Supply side members in a regionwhere land ownership is fragmented will be lesslikely to grant the FSC pragmatic legitimacy,owing to high transaction and implementationcosts.

The roots of this hypothesis derive more fromtraditional economic theory than public policyliterature. Nevertheless, it appears to be an impor-tant explanation in supply side legitimation dynam-ics. If this hypothesis holds, regions with a largenumber of small land holdings will show a lowacceptance of FSC certification owing to the dise-conomies of scale associated with certifying smallforest tracts. We found both direct and indirectevidence in our cases that support this hypothesis.The most illustrative support exists in the US

south-east. Most forestland is owned by NIPFs insmall tracts, which together supply the majority ofthe region’s domestic wood fiber(United StatesForest Service, 2000; DeCoster, 1998). Wood pro-cessors in the region require a continuous fibersupply in order to feed their highly specializedcapital-intensive mills(Hyde and Stuart, 1998:24); consequently industrial forest companies con-sider the logistical problems associated with theFSC’s chain of custody requirements overwhelm-ing given their large number of small fiber sup-pliers (personal interviews). The FSC’s attemptsto address this practical barrier have met with littlesuccess. The regional working group has promotedgroup certification and resource manager certifi-cation as options for the many small landownersin the Southeast, but neither industrial managersnor NIPFs themselves have taken much interest inthem.Conversely, we observed cases in which there

were a small number of large landowners whoenjoyed economies of scale in the costs of FSCcertification. In BC, land is concentrated in thehands of a few large companies(Marchak et al.,1999) (and ultimately in the hands of one land-owner—the provincial government), and in theUK, land is held by the government(ForestryIndustry Council of Great Britain, 2000). Although


economies of scale and cost issues were notmentioned explicitly during interviews in BC, theywere cited during UK interviews as an importantreason for supply side support for FSC there.While chain of custody requirements were a

hurdle for UK processors, two factors made aresolution possible there. First, the FSC took aconforming strategy to meet the substantive needsof these companies through a change to the thresh-old percent-requirements for an FSC product tocarry a label (Forest Stewardship Council,2000). Second, the successful FSC certification11

of large areas of government lands meant thatprocessors had sufficient FSC wood supply evenwithout the certification of any large portion ofthe private growers(personal interview). Conse-quently, where certification has been stifled by acomplex wood basket in the US south-east, thepresence of one key landowner open to certifica-tion has made possible broader acceptance of theFSC in the UK.The different structural and economic limitations

on owners of small and large land holdings appearto have explanatory power when exploring thedivergent levels of supply side support for FSC inour cases.

Hypothesis 5. Members of the supply side in aregion where companies and landowners are wellrepresented and unified are less likely, everythingelse being equal, to grant the FSC pragmaticlegitimacy.

Inhibiting the production of FSC certified prod-ucts in a region, and therefore blocking FSCsupporters’ market strategies by keeping supply ofFSC certified wood low, would seem to be aneffective way to prevent the FSC from gainingheadway. However, any such unified action runsthe risk of being sabotaged by defectors—in thecase of certification, the defectors would be com-panies or landowners who take advantage of arelatively high demand for FSC certified productsthat is not being met. The ability of a region’sforest sector to keep supply side members from

In fact, when the changes occurred, many of the UK mills11

were immediately able to offer FSC certified panel productsto the market.

defecting should be a measure of its success indenying the FSC legitimacy.This hypothesis appears to be an important

explanation for FSC’s lack of success in gaininglegitimacy from any large portion of the US supplyside. Up until the early 1990s every element ofthe US forest sector was noticeably fragmented(Lertzman et al., 1996). However, with the threatof declining access to timber from National Forestsin the Pacific Northwest the industry as a wholemoved to increase their national presence. The12

result was the AF&PA that amalgamated a numberof national associations(Cashore, 1997).When certification emerged, the AF&PA was

well resourced and situated to develop an industrywide response to the demand side and environ-mental group pressures. Throughout the US theSFI has rapidly developed tougher standards andthird-party procedures(American Forest and PaperAssociation, 2000a), in an attempt to win ENGOsupport or at least to neutralize general societalrecognition for ENGO policy(personal commu-nications). The strength of the industry’s cohesionis central to its resistance of the FSC in the US.Not only has the surprising consistency in theindustry’s ‘boycotting’ of the FSC regional pro-cesses been important, but also the AF&PA hasagreed to recognize the existing American ForestFoundation’s Tree Farm Program as the mostappropriate approach to certifying NIPF landown-ers (American Forest and Paper Association,2000c), demonstrating that the industrial portionof the supply side has united with one of the onlynationally, broadly supported landowner associa-tions. Their joint stance on certification representsunprecedented unity in a country that has tradi-tionally been characterized as extremely politicallyfragmented(Grant, 1989).By contrast, the Canadian forest sector was

represented by a fragmented and regionallyfocused associational system(Coleman, 1987,1988), which inhibited the adoption of a unified

The achievements of the environmental movement in the12

north-west had resulted from court action seeking properimplementation of federal statues by the certain agencies. Theindustry felt it lacked the ability to lobby the federal govern-ment to ensure future legislation did not give the environmentalmovement this kind of power.


stance on certification issues, and helps explainthe pragmatic legitimacy the supply side in BChas given to the FSC. Lacking a logical associationin which to house an industry response, the Cana-dian forest sector drew on the expertise andresources of the CSA to create its FSC response(Abusow and Rotherham, 1998; Lapointe, 1998).Within BC, unified supply side support for theCSA was further restrained given dynamics createdwith the emergence of the Forest Alliance of BC(FABC). Its mandate was to bolster the publicimage of the BC forest industry. However, whenthe FSC became a serious issue, neither the alreadyestablished Council of Forest Industries(COFI)nor the FABC had a clear mandate to develop aresponse. It seems that the FABC’s diverse mem-bership limited its ability to act purely on theindustries behalf. Once a few companies showedan interest in pursuing FSC, ‘the dam broke’ andother companies followed suit (personalcommunication).

9. The nature of the FSC’s competitor programs

Hypothesis 6. Supply side members are morelikely to give the FSC pragmatic legitimacy whenthe alternative programs have rigorous standards,even when alternative programs might providemarket access.

Hypothesis 7. Supply side members are morelikely to give the FSC pragmatic legitimacy whenthe alternative programs have lax standards accom-panied with poor market access.

While seemingly contradictory, our inductiveresearch seems to indicate that in order for FSCcompetitor programs to maintain support fromcompanies and landowners(or at least, not haveto share legitimacy with the FSC), they need todevelop a program that walks a fine line betweenbeing too prescriptive(and thus the costs of FSCdo not seem more difficult) and too weak(thusthe market will not accept the program).A central element of pragmatic legitimacy is an

evaluation on the part of the supply side memberof the ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ of certification underdifferent programs. In these hypotheses we consid-

er how the costs of different programs, in termsof compliance with the program’s standards, andbenefits, in terms of market acceptance and expect-ed economic gains, have affected supply sidesupport for the FSC. Empirical evidence seems toindicate that supply side members’ decisions tosupport the FSC(or not) are influenced stronglyby how well the competitor program balances costsand benefits.In some cases, the standards of an FSC compet-

itor program were perceived as being too rigorousto be acceptable by the supply side. Canadiansupply side companies initially endorsed the CSA;however, the costs, level of public scrutiny, andtime commitments of many aspects of this programeventually met or exceeded those of the FSC(personal interview), yet could not offer the poten-tial market benefits of the FSC. Consequently whathad been a program that was meant to limit FSCsuccess, became one among a number of certifi-cation alternatives(Forest Alliance of BritishColumbia, 2000). In its attempts to gain supportfrom the ENGO community by conforming toexisting Canadian public policy norms about pub-lic consultation, it appears that the program lostsome of its pragmatic appeal with the industry.Likewise, a competing certification program

may have less onerous standards than the FSC.This may be pragmatically appealing to the supplyside, but may be a disincentive for participation ifthe system has no market acceptance. However,we did not observe this situation in any of ourcases: rather, it appeared that when the alternativeprogram had weaker standards and low marketacceptance, it provided other, less tangible benefitsthat mitigated against the lack of market support.For example, in the case of Germany, no retailersor wood processors are demanding PEFC certifiedwood; however, the PEFC is associated with theavoidance ofFremdbestimmung, or the ‘rulingfrom the outside’ of domestic forest practices,which is seen by supply side members as the majorthreat of the three-chamber FSC system. Similarfeelings persist even in the UK, where the privategrowing community is seeking recognition of theUKWAS, a standard recognized as equivalent tothe nationally endorsed UK FSC standard, to the


PEFC for mutual recognition under its framework(Yull, 2000, 2001).In the US, SFI certified wood has not been

accepted by members of FSC buyers groups in theUS or elsewhere, but the SFI offers supply sidemembers an opportunity to maintain a cohesivefront and ‘starve’ the US demand for FSC certifiedproducts. Furthermore, the SFI, being initiallycreated as a public relations program to regainpublic trust, has continued to offer its membersother benefits. For instance, the SFI continuallyuses informing strategies directed at general soci-ety that point to the many beneficial things theprogram is achieving(American Forest and PaperAssociation, 2000b,c,d). While linked to its com-petition with the FSC, these give tangible benefitsto participant companies that are, in a sense,independent of market acceptance.Overall, the cases highlight the struggle that the

FSC’s competitor programs face to keep the levelof certification standards acceptable to supply sidemembers while simultaneously getting acceptancein the marketplace. So far, no competitor programhas met this challenge; however, some programshave managed to offer the supply side otherimportant incentives. It appears that, in many ofour cases, these non-market benefits tend to bereason enough for supply side support.

10. Conclusion

Supply side response to the creation of the FSCcertification program and its competitors beganwith remarkable homogeneity in all of our studyregions: with few exceptions, supply-side forestcompanies and landowners gave pragmatic andsometimes moral legitimacy to the competitorprograms. However, since 1998 a dramatic shifthas occurred, which saw the supply side audiencein BC and the UK moved to give the FSCpragmatic legitimacy. In this paper we exploredthis divergence and offered a first attempt atapplying a heuristic developed by Cashore(2002)that builds on the seminal work of Suchman(1995) on organizational legitimacy. Its importancehinges on the way in which it allows us toinvestigate firm response to rules generated outsidethe purview of the state, and governed by inter-

actions in the market. Our research found thatemerging NSMD governance programs, while the-oretically able to garner pragmatic, moral andcognitive support from supply-side members, arepresently focused on gaining pragmatic and morallegitimacy, the least durable categories.Empirical evidence showed that forest compa-

nies’ and landowners’ decisions to support a cer-tain certification program are constrained andinfluenced by a complex group of factors. Supply-side members in regions with a high reliance onforeign markets appear to be more likely to supportthe FSC program, since these members’ interna-tional buyers can make(sometimes controversial)demands for FSC certified wood without riskingthe political backlash that domestic companiesmight experience. Supply side members in regionswhere forest management practices have reachedthe status of ‘problem’ on the policy agenda aremore likely to support the FSC as a way toexpedite problem resolution and avoid controversy,or as a way to gain ‘social license’. The structureof the forest sector was also shown to be closelyrelated to diverging levels of FSC acceptance:regions with fragmented land ownership facedmore resistance to the FSC, due to hurdles suchas increased transaction costs and decreased econ-omies of scale. A high level of forest sectorcohesion, on the other hand, was closely relatedto the ability of the supply side to resist FSCcertification. The inability of competitor programsto simultaneously minimize the substantive costsof certification yet maximize market acceptanceappears to be related to a higher level of supplyside support for FSC in some cases; however, inother cases, competitor programs have securedsupply side support through the provision of othernon-market incentives, despite being unable topromise market acceptance.While the methodological hurdles of such a

study are significant, the importance of a newgovernance system like forest certification meansthat more research needs to be done to understandjust what is emerging, who is giving it support,and how durable this support might be. This paperis an initial effort to do this by focusing on issuesof divergence, which may shed light on wherecertification is headed in other regions and other


sectors. It also serves as an example of anotherpolicy realm that has come under intense pressurefor convergence, but has nonetheless experiencedimportant divergence.

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