Forest Certification and the Privatization of Environmental Governance
This research path examines the increasing privatization of environmental governance, where non-state actors and market mechanisms are used to address policy problems of concern to global civil society. My particular research project focuses on the case of eco-labeling in the forest sector, where non-state sanctioned market driven (NSMD) forest management certification programs have developed, with which to accredit companies and landowners for practicing SFM. The interest in the use of voluntary market-oriented incentives as a means to address SFM concerns domestically and globally has become so intense in recent years that a new regulatory paradigm shift toward these private sector “governance systems” could be looming. Three areas of focus within this research path include:
- Comparing support for certification in industrialized countries
This project identifies the emergence of forest certification in North America and Europe and the facts that facilitate certification program’s efforts to achieve legitimacy, explaining why support varies across countries. The project entails a comparative case study analysis of certification politics and policies in Canada, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland. Research techniques include in person interviews with certification policy actors, mail-surveys of forest company officials and landowners, as well as primary and secondary data collection. - Evaluation of Forest Certification
This research path involves interdisciplinary work with natural science colleagues (Ashton and Oliver) in systematically understanding the impacts and potential impacts of forest certification in the conservation of biological diversity. Click here for a power point presentation of the project. - Forest Certification and Developing Countries
This is a new research path. The first step is the holding of a symposium (with the State University of New York at Buffalo, University of Tasmania, and others) on the effects of forest certification in developing and transitioning societies at Yale in June 2004
Publications and papers from this pathway include:
- Cashore, Auld, and Newsom Governing Through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority Recently released from Yale University Press (See above on forest certification)
• www.governingthroughmarkets.com
• press release (PDF file, 96k) - Bernstein and Cashore, “Non-State Global Governance: Is Forest Certification a Legitimate Alternative to a Global Forest Convention?” forthcoming in John Kirton and Michael Trebilcock (eds.) Hard Choices, Soft Law: Combining Trade, Environment, and Social Cohesion in Global Governance (Aldershot: Ashgate Press). 2004.
• Click here for PDF - Cashore, Auld and Newsom, “Legitimizing Political Consumerism: The Case of Forest Certification in North America and Europe” 2004, Special issue of the Russian Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. This is a reprint of our chapter in Politics, Products, and Markets. Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present edited by Micheletti, Andreas FØllesdal, and Dietlind Stolle. Transaction Press, at Rutgers University, New Brunswick
• click here for PDF - Cashore and Noah, “Developing a Multi-Disciplinary Evaluation of an Environmental Policy Innovation: Impacts of Forest Certification within the United States.” Paper prepared for delivery to the Annual Meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Washington, DC, November 6, 2003.
• Click here for PDF - Cashore, Auld, and Newsom, “The United States’ Race to Certify Sustainable Forestry: Non-State Environmental Governance and the Competition for Policy-Making Authority” (With Auld and Newsom), Forthcoming Business and Politics Volume 5, Issue 3 (January 2004).
• Click here for draft PDF - Cashore and Lawson, “Private Policy Networks and Sustainable Forestry Policy: Comparing Forest Certification Experiences in the US Northeast and the Canadian Maritimes.” Canadian-American Public Policy (Spring 2003)
• Click here for PDF - Cashore, “Legitimacy and the Privatization of Environmental Governance: How Non State Market-Driven (NSMD) Governance Systems (Eco-labeling Programs) Gain Rule Making Authority” Governance, vol. 15, no. 4 (October 2002).
• Click here for PDF - Cashore, “Perspectives on Forest Certification as a Policy Process: Reflections on Elliott and Schlaepfer’s Use of the Advocacy Coalition Framework” Christopher Elliott, Errol Meidinger, and Gerhard Oesten (editors), Social and Political Dimensions of Forest Certification. Remagen-Oberwinter, Germany: Forstbuch. 2002.
• Click here for PDF - Cashore, Auld and Newsom, “Forest Certification (Eco-labeling) Programs and their Policy-Making Authority: Explaining Divergence Among North American and European Case Studies” Journal of Forest Policy and Economics 2003 (Volume 5, issue 3). 225-247.
• Click here for PDF - Auld, Cashore and Newsom, “Perspectives on Forest Certification: A Survey Examining Differences Among the US Forest Sectors’ Views of Their Forest Certification Alternatives” in Forest Policy for Private Forestry. (Teeter, Cashore and Zhang, eds). Accepted through a blind peer review process established by editors, CAB International. 2002.
• Click here for PDF - Newsom, Cashore, Auld and Granskgo, “Forest Certification in the Heart of Dixie: A Survey Of Alabama Landowners” in Forest Policy for Private Forestry. (Teeter, Cashore and Zhang, eds). Accepted through a blind peer review process established by editors, CAB International. 2002.
• Click here for PDF - Lawson and Cashore, “Company Choices on Sustainable Forestry Forest Certification: The Case of JD Irving, Ltd.*” in Forest Policy for Private Forestry. (Teeter, Cashore and Zhang, eds). Accepted through a blind peer review process established by editors, CAB International. 2002.
• Click here for PDF
