IKEA-WWF Cooperation on Forest Projects

Send this page
Keywords:
CBI Practitioners: 
David Fairman

 

CBI completed a Consensus Building / Conflict Resolution Toolkit on forest management standards for the IKEA-WWF Cooperation on Forest Projects. The toolkit was launched at a meeting of FSC national certification groups in China, and received very positive feedback.

The Toolkit is a response to the growing demand for consensus-based natural resource sustainability standards. In the forest sector, several process and product certification systems have been developed to promote environmentally and socially sound forest management. A number of major furniture and forest products retailers, including IKEA, have committed to purchase only wood products that meet the Forest Stewardship Council’s certification principles, criteria and procedures.

Rising demand for certified wood products from major buyers like IKEA has spurred timber producers, environmental and social development groups in a number of wood product-exporting countries to come together to develop national forest certification standards under FSC auspices. Though these groups are often very sophisticated in their understanding of forest management issues, they face real challenges in building consensus among diverse stakeholders–large scale commercial timber and wood processing companies, small scale logging operations, forest ecologists, anthropologists, community development advocates and indigenous peoples–on forest management criteria.

To develop the Toolkit, CBI Managing Director David Fairman, assisted by Associate Larry Dixon, integrated technical understanding of forest management issues, expertise in multistakeholder consensus building for sustainable development, and information on the FSC’s standard setting process. The Toolkit provides guidance on consensus building linked to key tasks in the standard setting process:

  • Establishing a standard-setting body using stakeholder assessment;
  • Reaching agreement on goals and ground rules for the standard setting process;
  • Developing the standards using joint fact finding, independent facilitation and mutual gains negotiation.

 

Pierre Hauselmann, Partner at Pi Environmental Consulting provided guidance and invaluable information on FSC standard setting challenges. Pierre managed the development of the Toolkit and other instruments in the IKEA-WWF “Pathfinder” resource for national forest certification bodies.

 

For more information on this case, please contact Managing Director David Fairman.