Browsing by Subject "B2B markets"

The green markets are growing all the time and many different environmental performance measures (EPMs) such as forest certificates, eco-labels, footprint calculations and environmental management systems have emerged in the past few decades. These measures help companies to prove the origin of wood and the environmental friendliness of their products and production processes. This qualitative study examined how Finnish wood products companies use different environmental performance measures in both supply and demand side of the wood products market and the practices and problems related to environmental communication. Seventeen personal interviews among Finnish wood products value chain professionals were conducted in order to find the industry perspectives on the development needs in environmental performance of the wood products. The results of this study indicate that the most commonly used environmental performance measures in Finnish wood product companies are forest certificate PEFC and the standard of ISO14001. In contrast, the use of other ecolabels as well as Life Cycle Assessment methods (LCA) and related tools were relatively uncommon. The main drivers for use of EPMs were customer requirements (especially in certain environmentally sensitive export markets) and strategic decisions to act responsibly. The most important issue in environmental performance measures was perceived to be the ability to document trustworthiness of company operations. Also the origin of wood was recognized as an important issue. It also seems that forest certificates and ISO14001 standard are more important in the export markets than in the domestic markets. The supply chains for wood products are often long and complex and therefore the environmental information of the products does not always reach the end-consumers. The communication between wood product companies in the B2B markets is mainly based on personal relationships. Environmental issues are mentioned, but in most of the companies, they are still in passive use. Companies that want to stand out in the future need to start focusing on new green strategies and providing more detailed environmental information on their products and processes.