Environmental activity and forest certification in marketing of forest products -: A case study in Europe

Forest industries and their industrial customers from four European countries were surveyed by interviews to study the environmental emphasis and the role of timber certification in their marketing planning. Most of the Finnish, Swedish, German and British companies have begun to integrate environmental issues in their strategic, structural and functional level marketing decisions. They see forest certification as a necessary tool for marketing forest products. The level of environmental activity (greenness) of the companies was studied by creating a one dimensional factor score rating. The logic of marketing planning was tested by using one functional level marketing tool - forest certification - as an example to examine how well the level of greenness explains the importance of forest certification for the company. The results show that in the surveyed companies the level of greenness has more explanatory power than background factors such as country or industry sector. The integration of environmental issues into marketing planning and the interest in forest certification by these companies can provide meaningful insights for the forest industries worldwide as they confront similar issues.