Procedural Factors Influencing Forest Certification Audits: An Empirical Study in Romania

Aureliu-Florin Hălălișan,Germán Arana-Landín,Olivier Boiral,Bogdan Popa,Adelin-Ionuț Nicorescu,Ioan Vasile Abrudan,Iñaki Heras-Saizarbitoria

doi:10.3390/f12020172

Aureliu-Florin Hălălișan, Germán Arana-Landín + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020172

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Abstract

In the recent decades, forest certification based on third-party external audits has gained momentum. This type of certification has been developed as a monitoring tool aimed at improving governance in corporate environmental management and differentiating products in the increasing environmentally sensitive markets. Although the scholarly literature has extensively analyzed the adoption and dissemination of forest certification, the findings of the external audits and certification practices remain under researched. On the basis of the analysis of 105 audit reports issued by accredited third-party certification bodies in Romania, this article sheds light on procedural factors that have significant influence on the characteristics of non-conformities (NCs) identified by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) third party audits. Our research offers empirical evidence that certain procedural factors such as the type of assessment, auditing days, number of auditors, or the presence of foreign members in an audit team have a significant influence on the auditing process outcomes: number and grade of non-conformities, standard references, or methods of NC detection. The study opens interesting new lines of research—the influence of procedural or other types of contextual factors on certification outcomes—and provides indications on the effectiveness of the certification procedures and guidelines in certification process quality assurance.

Highlights

Forest certification is a voluntary process based on consumer preference for wood products sourced from sustainably managed forests
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certification is achieved through an auditing process carried out by an independent accredited certification body, with forest management conformity assessed against the standard [1,12,13]—FSC has one set of principles and criteria defined by FSC International or defined by regional working groups coordinated by national chapters [14]; PEFC, on the other hand, is based on the standards developed by each country, evaluated by PEFC International under certain requirements [15]
This study contributes to the relatively limited scholarly literature focused on the outcomes and the procedural factors of the external audits in forest management certification

Summary

Introduction

Forest certification is a voluntary process based on consumer preference for wood products sourced from sustainably managed forests. The certification process quality assurance is one of the main concerns of the certification schemes They aim to standardize the auditing procedures in order to reduce the possible influence of procedural factors and enhance the legitimacy and impartiality in the certification process [38,39,40,41]. The FSC standard 20-001 [12] defines the requirements related to the auditing teams They must have a leading auditor with the ability to conduct the audit and collect the evidence, one auditor from the team must be fluent in the main language used in the area, and the team must include at least one technical expert with the necessary experience and qualifications to audit all aspects of the FSC principles and criteria for forest management, considering the scale and complexity of the certified area to be assessed [12].

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