Certified Forest Products: Perspectives from Industrial Consumers in Wisconsin

A survey of industrial firms that regularly purchased wood products from a large, chain of custody certified sawmill (at the time of the study also Wisconsin's largest certified forest landholder) was conducted in 2003. Results were examined to:

1) provide baseline data on this topic from a region characterized as having a highly active wood products industry

2) ascertain the salience of environmentally certified wood products in this region and extrapolate the market implications this poses for other regions and

3) aid efforts to understand supply and demand implications for environmentally certified wood both in and beyond Wisconsin's borders.

These companies, generally categorized as secondary wood products manufacturers, reported company perceptions and adoption trends regarding certified wood. Most industrial wood product consumers were not chain of custody certified. While wood product quality and price were found the most important sourcing criteria for this group, environmental certification ranked last.