Environmental certification
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. Most certification services have a logo 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 to minimise the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.
Motivations for implementation
The primary motivations for many companies who choose to implement environmental certification schemes are, to provide an ethical product for the consumers, increase sustainable development, improve the image of the company, gain a better relationship with stakeholders and to make a higher profit.Many companies believe that the implementation of environmental certification programmes can lead to an improved company image and generate competitive advantage. This is usually achieved through the use of ecolabels which can be used on the company's products, allowing the product to stand out as being produced in an environmentally sound way. The ecolabels associated with environmental certification inform consumers that the product in question has been verified by a third party auditor as originating from an environmentally well managed company. Therefore, the certificate gives an indication of good practice and provides the company a better image. This approach allows consumers to steer their purchasing behaviour in a more environmentally sound direction. This also means that if environmental marketing strategies such as environmental certification are to work there must be consumers willing to purchase the resulting green products.
There are also ethical motivations for a company to improve its environmental performance and move towards achieving sustainable development. All environmental certification schemes attempt to provide organisations with an effective environmental management system to help them to achieve environmental and economic goals. The current high levels of consumption and economic growth often leads to the degradation of land and pollution of the natural environment. The aim of the move towards sustainable development is to ensure the availability of natural resources for future generations. Within environmental certification the life cycle approach is often adopted, where the life cycle of the product from its production to its disposal are followed to ensure that it is produced, used and disposed of in a sustainable and environmentally sound way.
There is increasing pressure on companies to respond to environmental pressure from stakeholders, therefore increasing the use of voluntary environmental regulations such as certification to achieve sufficient social legitimacy and to protect their profits. This is a relational motivation as the company feels that environmentally conscious management will help to prevent stakeholder pressures and to form a good relationship with the socio-economic environment. There are also operational motivations which are the belief that environmental certification can help to reduce costs and increase productivity and commercial motivations which are the belief that it can help to increase sales and improve the market position.
There are examples of private sector companies choosing to promote private standards over international standards for certification. The motivation is new terms can be created that will improve their environmental reporting. The term 'insetting' was created by the private sector, and is not a term defined in the international standard, IWA 42 Net Zero Guidelines. The New Climate Institute reported companies were successfully lobbying the standards setting organizations to rubber-stamp the inclusion of 'insetting claims' that benefit their net zero pledges.
Examples
Carbon Trust Standard
The Carbon Trust Standard is an independent certification scheme from The Carbon Trust, certifying an organisation's impact in respect of:- Energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions
- Water usage, management and effluent
- Waste management and disposal.
EMAS
The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme is the EU's voluntary environmental resources management instrument. Environmental Management Systems in accordance with EMAS are used worldwide by companies and organisations of all sizes and types. EMAS registered organisations commit themselves to evaluate, manage and improve their environmental performance.EMAS is open to every type of organisation attempting to improve its environmental performance. It spans all economic and service sectors and is applicable worldwide. Currently, more than 4,400 organisations and more than 8,150 sites are EMAS registered. Only independent environmental verifiers that are accredited/licensed and supervised by government authorities are authorised to validate EMAS environmental statements. The external and independent nature of the EMAS registration process ensures the credibility of the scheme and the reliability of the information provided by registered organisations. The ISO 14001: 2004 requirements are a part of EMAS, but EMAS adds several elements to these:
- stricter requirements on the measurement and evaluation of environmental performance against set targets according to six environmental core indicators, and the continuous improvement of that environmental performance;
- compliance with environmental legislation ensured by government supervision: the compliance check is executed by an independent and external environmental verifier, who is in turn subjected to quality checks by national government authorities ;
- requirement of employee involvement in the continuous performance improvement process;
- provision of information to the general public through the obligation to publish an annual public environmental statement that is independently verified;
- registration by a public authority after verification by an accredited/licensed environmental verifier; and
- registered organisations can use the EMAS logo to communicate their EMAS compliance
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
The Forest Stewardship Council is a non-profit, nongovernmental organization which promotes the responsible management of forests on an international scale. It is widely regarded as one of the most important initiatives for promoting responsible international forest management and was established in 1993 following concerns for global deforestation. The FSC is a voluntary mechanism which involves an inspection of a forest landowners management practices based on criteria for sustainable forest management. This can occur on both privately and publicly owned forests and allows the products manufactured from certified forests to be tracked through the value chain. Certificates are not issued by the FSC but by third party independent organisations called certification bodies. These bodies assess the forest management against FSC standards and audits certificate holders at least once a year to ensure continued compliance with FSC standards. To achieve official recognition as an FSC certification body they must comply with a large set of rules and procedures and also be verified by Accreditation Services International, the company managing the FSC accreditation program.The FSC provides a globally recognized private standard, trademark assurance and accreditation services for companies, organizations and communities interested in responsible forestry. Products that have been certified can be identified by consumers from the on product ecolabel which provides a globally trusted mark of forest products that benefit people and the environment. This helps a company to protect a brand or reputation and allows certificate holders access to highly environmentally sensitive markets. This provides an example of mainstreaming strategy shaped by retailer dominance of wood commodity networks as it has been supported by the World Bank, USAID, several European governments, influential environmental organizations, and by transnational retailers such as IKEA and The Home Depot and has especially strong market penetration in the United Kingdom, Germany and on the Dutch timber market.
The fundamental purpose of the FSC is to allow environmentally aware consumers to use market forces to effectively complement and develop forest policy and to ensure that producer behave in a responsible way according to predefined objectives. As a result of this the FSC has been endorsed by influential NGOs as a means to promote concrete actions regarding forest management, as a platform for stating forest policy principles and values, and as an effective way to gain publicity. The potential benefits of the FSC are said to include ecological, economic and social aspects, therefore the sustainability of forests. The environmental certification process commits forest managers to make improvements to planning and monitoring, implement conservation strategies, reduce the environmental impact from logging and improve the conditions of forest workers. It also demonstrates the success of NGOs in promoting rapid adoption of environmental certification which pushes social and environmental improvements in forest management practices.
There have been concerns that the retailer-focused expansion strategy tends to favour large forest enterprises over small ones, northern operations over southern ones, and may be unable to meet the special needs of community forest managers. There has also been a concern that the certification process leaves the burden of costs of both the certification process and wood that is more expensive to produce on the producer without allowing them to charge a higher price for FSC certified products.