Perspectives and Attitudes of Forest Products Industry Companies on the Chain of Custody Certification: A Case Study From Turkey

Ahmet Tolunay,Türkay Türkoğlu

doi:10.3390/su6020857

Abstract

The perspectives and attitudes of the companies of the forest products industry operating in the fields of solid wood products, pulp, paper and paperboard products, engineered wood products and furniture manufacturing in Turkey on the chain of custody certification system and certified forest products were investigated. Within this scope, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the managers or owners of 177 companies. The data were obtained by using the questionnaire technique. The research methods included descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance and the Duncan test. As a result, it was detected that there are differences in the perspectives and attitudes towards the chain of custody certification system of the companies operating in the four main branches of the forest products industry in Turkey. It was revealed by this survey that chain of custody (CoC) certification was known mostly by the companies operating in pulp, paper and paperboard companies. The certification most demanded is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) CoC certification, with a share of 15%; and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) CoC is demanded by 2% of companies.

Highlights

The environmental movement has emerged as a response to society‟s concerns about the sustainability of Earth‟s natural resources [1]. „Environmental awareness‟ has a major influence on many people in their daily life, including the way consumers buy and use products [2]
The questionnaire included a brief description of forest certification and chain of custody (CoC), questions about companies profile in the first section and questions in second section were asked to assess views and attitudes on the CoC certification of the forest products sector in Turkey
The findings show that the CoC certification system in Turkey is developing step by step

Summary

Introduction

The environmental movement has emerged as a response to society‟s concerns about the sustainability of Earth‟s natural resources [1]. „Environmental awareness‟ has a major influence on many people in their daily life, including the way consumers buy and use products [2]. There is an increasing demand in the developed world for environmental certification in this new globalized era [3]. Environmental certification is a form of environmental regulation and development where a company can voluntarily choose to comply with predefined processes or objectives set forth by the certification service [4]. Most certification services have a logo (commonly known as ecolabel) which can be applied to products certified under their standards. This is seen as a form of corporate social responsibility, allowing companies to address their obligation in order to minimize the harmful impacts to the environment by following voluntarily a set of externally measured objectives [5]. Forest certification is one of the environmental certifications that was initially advanced by environmental groups as a response to the consequences of deforestation and forest degradation [6,7]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion