FSC

Some timber traders as well as social and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) negotiated the establishment of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in San Francisco in 1991 (Cadman 2011). Two years later, representatives from 10 countries met in Toronto, Canada for the founding meeting of the FSC. Finally, as a result of the intensive negotiations, the FSC was registered in 1994. It created a new model of a market-based protection instrument to promote responsible forest management and trade (WWF 2014/2020). According to Pattberg (2005), the FSC is based on the principles of sustainable development. The standards of responsible forest management defined by the FSC make it possible to promote globally and nationally responsible forest management.

This book provides a novel approach for understanding and analyzing transnational governance by private authorities. It brings together theoretical and empirical insights by introducing a new master concept: governance generating networks (GGN). These networks comprise three structural elements: (1) nodes of design, where global standards are developed; (2) forums of negotiation, where stakeholders discuss and negotiate the standards; and (3) sites of implementation, where global rules are transferred into concrete practices on the ground. This concept captures both transnational processes and local practices that take place in the sites of implementation, involving local actors and stakeholders as they react and adjust to the new global standards.The book focuses on forest governance through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme, investigating implementation of FSC standards in Russia. Using several case studies in which the GGN concept is used as an analytical tool, this study assesses how global governance through the FSC contributes to forest governance in Russia, and to what extent it fills an institutional void by giving voice to private actors and enabling them to foster sustainable forest management. Scholars of political science, sociology, and related disciplines as well as practitioners, such as NGO activists, company representatives, FSC experts, managers and auditors, will find valuable insights, both theoretical and empirical, in this empirically rich and theoretically innovative study.

The exact causes of food losses and waste vary throughout the world and are very much dependent on the specific conditions and local situation in a given country, but considerable research exists concerning a general and global frame of the situation.
The analysis carried out by FAO (2011) estimates food waste in the world at 1.3 billion tons a year, equal to about a third of the total food produced for human consumption. An IPCC (2019) special report estimates the food waste at 25-30% of total food produced. Food losses represent a waste of resources used in production and lead to unnecessary CO2 emissions (FAO, 2011).
The analysis that follows explores where and why food is wasted in different parts (production- transformations, distribution and consumption) of the Food Supply Chain.

This research therefore assessed the extent to which the policy sets of FSC and PEFC adhere to the human rights and labour rights provisions included in the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), the ILO Fundamental Conventions, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The research included the international standards of both certification systems, their standards for Chain of Custody certification and their national standards for a number of selected countries (six for FSC and four for PEFC).

‘‘Eco-labels’’ are an increasingly important form
of private regulation for sustainability in areas such as carbon
emissions, water consumption, ethical sourcing, or organic
produce.The growing interest and popularity of eco-labels has
also been coupled with growing concerns about their credibility,
in part because the standard-setting and conformity
assessment practices that eco-labels adopt exhibit striking
differences. In this paper,we assess which assurance practices
contribute to eco-labels being perceived as better governed, in
the eyes of experts as well as the media. Unlike previous
studies, which are mostly conceptual, qualitative, or focused
on one or few eco-labels, we study a large set of eco-labels,
combining data from three different sources. Our findings
suggest that experts and media are primarily concerned about
‘‘re-assurance’’ practices, looking for one or preferably multiple
layers of ‘‘re-assurance’’ that independent parties are
overseeing the eco-label and the firms certified under it.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the contribution of the FSC forestry certification system to improve the forestry sector, in terms of compliance to environmental and social laws and improvements in working conditions resulting from the certification process. Thirty-seven auditing reports from five Brazilian forestry companies were evaluated, throughout the 2006-2013 period. Non-compliance and observations were analyzed and organized into categories, which
identified the main performance issues found in certified forestry organizations. 301 instances of non-compliance and 138 observations of audit reports were verified, where 48 and 57% respectively, were linked to the two principles studied. For obtaining and/or maintaining the certificate it is necessary for all violations to be resolved. Therefore, it was concluded that forest certification contributes to the advancement of the forestry sector in Brazil, in relation to compliance with legal, social and labor issues.

Some timber traders as well as social and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) negotiated the establishment of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in San Francisco in 1991 (Cadman, 2011). Two years later, representatives from ten countries met in Toronto, Canada, for the founding meeting of the FSC. Finally, as a result of the intensive negotiations, the FSC was registered in 1994. It created a new model of a market-based protection instrument to promote responsible forest management and trade (WWF, 2014/2020). According to Pattberg (2005), the FSC is based on the principles of sustainable development. The standards of responsible forest management defined by the FSC make it possible to promote globally and nationally responsible forest management.

Since the early 1990s, forest certification has served as a transnational governance mechanism which allows diverse economic actors, from global corporations to local communities, to engage in sustainable forest management processes that economically and socially benefit stakeholders at multiple levels of the supply chain. While large market-based civil society organizations , such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), have been successful in establishing forest certification schemes throughout the world, local level economic actors continue to be marginalized from the management process, particularly those in the Global South. This paper provides an overview of the challenges communities face in managing and conserving their forest resources while attempting to engage in a global market. Drawing on case studies from Oaxaca, Mexico, this study explores how three environmental governance mechanisms, including non-state market-driven (NSMD) certification, state-based certification, and indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs), have affected forest conservation and the inclusion of local groups in the management process. Elinor Ostrom’s eight design principles for managing the commons  will be used to analyze specific examples of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the state-based Mexican Forest Certification System (MFCS), and two indigenous, community-based ICCAs operating in Oaxaca. Based on these analyses, three key factors essential to successful community involvement in forest certification and conservation are proposed, including effective communication among all stakeholders, cooperation among local economic actors, and the role of civil society institutions in monitoring participants at all levels of a multi-scale governance system  to ensure equal inclusion and sustainable practice.