Abstract
The aim of this explorative study is to find out how the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) has affected the forest and chain of custody (CoC) certification strategies and practices among the Finnish wood industry companies. We are especially interested to find out whether more integrated strategies and collaborative networks have emerged for enhanced communications throughout the industry value chains. This qualitative interview study included both EUTR ex ante and ex post analysis, based on three rounds of managerial and expert interviews during 2011–2015. The results indicate that the EUTR appears to have enforced the supplier–client relations in the Finnish wood industry value chain. The sector still lacks integrated communication strategies with better understanding of customer and stakeholder values, which could contribute to more cohesive communication and marketing efforts reflecting the values of the whole industry. The certification practices are fairly spontaneously implemented following the traditional industry culture, which is not supportive of innovations and gaining competitive advantages in the broader material markets. Furthermore, the existence of two parallel forest certificates (Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)) seems to hamper the effective communication and building of an image of sustainable wood products among customers and end consumers, groups that are also exposed to more general environmental communication, e.g., in the building material markets.
Highlights
Forest and chain of custody (CoC) certifications have been blamed for being unable to capture substantial market shares, or bringing in competitive advantage or price premiums, e.g., [1,2]
Supplier-facing strategies are usually adopted in the industry’s total quality management (TQM) [37,38], while more state-of-the-art customer-facing strategies are adopted in customer relationship management (CRM), e.g., [39,40,41], can lead to more product and service innovations and improved infrastructure to enhance customer value perceptions and strengthen customer engagement and loyalty [42]
The exports share is large among the primary producers and in most of the value-added companies, while wholesalers/retailers act in the domestic market
Summary
Forest and chain of custody (CoC) certifications have been blamed for being unable to capture substantial market shares, or bringing in competitive advantage or price premiums, e.g., [1,2]. This is the case for downstream consumer markets, despite consumer perceptions towards certification and sustainable forest management practices being fairly positive [3,4,5]. Still, a characteristic of the wood industries and certified forest products is the lack of strategies throughout the value chain aimed at building end-consumer awareness on sustainable forest certification vs non-certified or other material products
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