Environmental certification of forests: The evolution of environmental governance in a commodity network

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) influence social and environmental aspects of commodity production through certification schemes like organic and forest certification. As these become mainstream, however, they are often compromised by the interests of more powerful agents. Utilizing the concept of governance in global commodity networks, this article examines the mainstreaming of forest certification. By working with retailers, forest certification expanded rapidly. The retailer focus, however, limits the spread of forest certification among medium-sized, small, and community forest management operations. It also raises questions of fairness because it imposes costs on forest managers without providing compensation through higher prices. NGOs now implement programs to make Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification more accessible and more useful to forest managers, but these do not resolve the imbalance of power between the big retailers demanding certification and the small forest managers who must absorb increased costs. The dominance of big retailers in commodity networks provides an attractive route to rapidly mainstream certification schemes, but it also limits their reach and compromises their equity.