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In many parts of the world, the success of biodiversity conservation strongly depends on the decisions of private landowners. These decisions are guided by the shared perceptions of the biodiversity problem. In this study, we applied a mixed method critical discourse analysis and examined how alternative discourses of biodiversity guide Finnish forest owners to maintain, or not maintain, biodiversity on their lands. Data collection combined a preliminary interview (n = 24) with a forest owner survey (n = 452). We identified four discourses of biodiversity. The concerned discourse acknowledges the biodiversity problems in forests caused by current forestry. The sceptical discourse denies the existence of all biodiversity problems and defends contemporary forestry against the accusations of environmentalists. The harmonising discourse emphasises the harmony of all forest uses in the spirit of multi-objective forestry. The uninvolved discourse distances itself from the biodiversity issue. Overall, only 21% of the survey respondents worried about biodiversity loss in Finnish forests. The discourses illustrate three different ways in which Finnish forest owners moderate the cognitive dissonance caused by 'unpleasant' information on biodiversity loss by either excluding or rejecting it, or assimilating it into multi-objective harmony. Overcoming these kinds of discursive barriers - the mechanisms that help decision-makers ignore alarming realities - is a major challenge for all those who aim to halt biodiversity loss.

The forest sector can play a major role in the transformation to a sustainable bioeconomy, driven by climate change, population growth, and accelerated urbanization. However, in most contexts, the industrial wood construction markets, as a promising field for sustainable bioeconomy, are still at a niche level. The analysis in this study concerns the preferred future export markets for industrial wood construction for the Finnish wood construction industry, as viewed by a panel of industrial, policy and academic experts. The aim is to identify promising export markets for Finland, and to identify required pathways by 2030. A qualitative participatory backcasting method was applied to explore the future visions of the industrial wood construction (IWC) sector and its export markets, as well as the pathways from the current towards the envisioned future. Thirty-five experts formed a panel which produced five visions of the development of industrial wood construction sector exports from Finland, covering the period 2020-2030. All the visions foresaw that the domestic market needs to develop first, to build up the competencies needed to fuel the growth in the exports. Asia, particularly China with its rapidly growing markets, and Europe, with its growing sustainability awareness, commonly appeared as the most promising areas for export growth. The resulting visions differed in terms of export portfolios, varying from more traditional wood materials and products to product-service-solutions. The policy measures identified to accelerate the envisioned growth included harmonization of product and building standards and regulations in the Nordic region and beyond, developing the educational base, and using of digital solutions in building new networks and communication in the IWC sector.

Understanding how stakeholders perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR/CR) is of importance, especially in industries that place high social demands on the sustainability of their products and services. The key objective of this article is to examine the perceptions of students as future consumers concerning CSR and the future of the forest industry. Using survey data from three countries, we analyze how personal values, general CSR support, and four background variables (nationality, gender, age, and study field) are related to student perceptions of overall sustainability and specific social and environmental sustainability performance in the forest industry. Our findings indicate that nationality and study field are strongly associated with student CSR perceptions. In addition, students build their CSR perceptions on their personal values and their overall support for CSR. We additionally explored how respondents perceive the future of the forest industry. The results underline the complex and context-dependent nature of sustainable forest use in a future bioeconomy as an issue that cannot be managed at the corporate level, but is dependent on perceptions, values, and levels of industry knowledge among stakeholders.

Sawnwood and its further-processed products play an important role in the mitigation of climate change; sawnwood, as well as its by-products from production processes, such as raw material (bark, chips, dust) for energy products (e.g. pellets, heating power), can substitute for other raw materials with higher carbon footprints. In this study, we integrate various foresight methods in analysing the future of the sawmilling industry in Finland. According to the results, climate change mitigation policies impact firstly through increasing energy costs and secondly through emerging energy products. The greatest uncertainties are related to the price of energy and the competitive situation of wood as a potential source of energy, both regulated heavily by EU- and national-level policies. In addition, the future development of biorefineries was regarded as a potential driver of change: the increasing demand for pulpwood would increase competition for the raw materials. From a managerial perspective, the Finnish sawmilling industry should thus consider adoption of new business models for joint production of wood, chips, and energy for heat and power. For the policymakers our study illustrates how important it is to take into account the causal effects on profitability determinants when designing policy measures.

This paper investigates public perceptions related to forest ecosystem services (ES), which have been identified as one of the key topics in forest sector communication. ES represents a prime example of an issue that merits more in-depth analysis. In this study, we (I) evaluate the views of the general public on the importance of forests contributing to different ES; (II) determine the public's need for information on the impact of forest sector businesses on ecosystems; and (Ill) assess how responsibly the public believes that forest sector companies act in relation to their impacts on ecosystems. A structured questionnaire using a 5-point Likert-scale was made available as an online survey targeting respondents from four European countries (Austria, Germany, Finland and Slovenia) in each national language and English. Between May and September 2015, 219 responses were received and analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, t-test, and ANOVA. Respondents showed high levels of agreement for items accounting for regulating and supporting ES. Information needs on forest sector business impacts were found to be high, whereas there was much greater division about the level of perceived forest sector responsibility. Regarding the public perception of forest ES, three dimensions were identified: "primary ES", "consumable ES", and "social cohesion related ES". Some relationships between the respondents' socio-demographic characteristics and the three dimensions of ES were uncovered: for example, "Consumable ES" are more important for female respondents and those who do not derive income from the forest sector. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This is the first study in a global context exploring the state of industrial timberland ownership and control and modelling of the binary choice of ownership strategy. In our sample of the 100 largest forest product companies in 2012, 40 have timberland ownership and 51 are integrated into timberland by ownership or leasing arrangements. The descriptive analysis indicates that the vertical integration strategies vary between companies from different regions. Despite recent timberland divestments in North America and the Nordic countries, the area reported for timberland in ownership and control among the top 100 companies has increased between 2007 and 2012 due to growth in emerging countries. The results of logistic regression analysis indicate that larger, more profitable and pulp-production oriented companies are more likely to be vertically integrated into timberland. The underlying reason can be that the pulp producers are financially more vulnerable to the risks associated with a reliable flow of raw material to their mills. In a dynamic market situation with increasing competition over arable land, more research is required to understand the interplay between global strategies across different forest industry companies, and between forestry and other forms of land use.

In the face of a strong societal emphasis on sustainable development, the research on environmentally conscious consumers is becoming increasingly important. In a country such as Finland, non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners can be used as a proxy for a high-involvement group engaged in forest ecosystem service provision and consumption. NIPF owners constitute a large proportion of the Finnish population and, based on previous research, the values they ascribe to forest meaning and use have become more diverse, strongly emphasizing recreational and conservation values alongside timber production. We thus hypothesize that understanding the NIPFs consumer perceptions better offers new insights into future consumer value creation in Finnish society overall, especially concerning the segment of consumers associated with the lifestyle of health and sustainability (LOHAS). First, the theoretical aim of the study was to validate a measurement model for forest owners engaged in pro-environmental consumption behavior and its effect on the meaning of forest for them. Second, the empirical aim was to identify different consumer categories among NIPF owners by classifying them into groups based on their sustainability orientation, and determine how the valuation of various uses of forests differs between these groups. The data set of 394 forest owners was collected in Finland in 2013 by telephone interview and was analysed using multivariate methods. The findings indicate that the owners with the highest sustainability orientation have a greater emphasis on multiple benefits of forests than owners who have a lower orientation to sustainable consumption behavior, and that they could be therefore considered as an interesting peer group for developing new service offerings in the changing forestry markets as well.

The European Union has set a milestone for cutting its carbon emissions by 2030 to levels 40% below the levels of 1990 through domestic reductions, improved energy efficiency and the greater use of renewable energy sources. In parallel, the key challenge of the pulp and paper industry (PPI) is how to achieve a transformation towards a bioeconomy, as well as to realize the necessary new green innovations. Climate change, material resource scarcity and ecosystem decline are among the ten major sustainability megaforces identified by KPMG (2012), globally influencing business environments. However, the relative importance of these megaforces in the context of pulp and paper sector transformation is yet unknown. We therefore investigate the significance of these megaforces and their relation to the drivers of sustainability-related investments in the European pulp and paper sector, and identify threats and opportunities that these business environmental changes may bring about. Our results are based upon a three-round dissensus-based Delphi approach carried out with a sample of 30 high-level European PPI experts collected in 2014. The panelists identified a greater demand for energy, volatility in the fossil fuel markets and increasing material resource scarcity as the most significant sustainability megaforces shaping European PPI over the next 15 years. However, all the megaforces – except for global ecosystem decline and water scarcity – were perceived more as opportunities rather than threats to European PPI business, indicating that designed energy and environmental policies have the potential to advance a paradigm change towards a bioeconomy rather than curbing the future of the European PPI.

The successful implementation of national bioeconomy strategies requires that various actor groups accept the concept and have similar visions for its future development. We use the fiber-based packaging sector to assess the understanding and perception concerning the definition of bioeconomy and its' future pathways. This is accomplished through a qualitative analysis of 14 thematic interviews conducted with actor network members in Finland. Regarding the concept of bioeconomy, their opinions differ broadly, ranging from seeing the concept as a Trojan horse, i.e. a new term for driving old political agendas, to a totally new way of organizing a sustainable future. We identified two alternative bioeconomy visions, of which the socio-ecological one is highlighted slightly more frequently, embedding the implementation of a circular economy and aiming at decoupling resource use from the economic benefits. Additionally, few interviewees considered the technological development pathway with increased resource efficiency to be a more likely outcome for the fiber-based packaging business. However, the simultaneous development of these two paths is envisaged most frequently, indicating that both social and technological innovations are mutually needed to create more sustainable packaging production and consumption patterns. We identified three characteristics of sustainable packaging: compatibility with the circular production-consumption system, satisfying heterogeneous consumer needs, and supporting sustainable lifestyles by extended material life cycles.

Forest industry has undergone profound changes since the 1990s. Industry-level consolidation and the rise in international investments are the most noticeable features of this process. Based on reviewing internationalization from internalization and transaction cost, resource based, industrial organization and managerial incentives theories, we apply the systematic review method to go through the literature concerning internationalization processes in the forest products industry during the 2000s. By linking the theories with empirical indicators in the forest products industry, we identify research gaps and formulate propositions for future research. We conclude that macro-level studies concerning policy and economic issues are relatively well represented in the literature, whereas only limited attention has been paid to micro-level studies. Based on the literature review, we argue that future internationalization research inter alia in the forest products industry should focus more on the role of corporate culture, the importance of corporate managerial capability, the multidimensional construct of sustainability, and conducting analysis within broader geographic scope than has been done so far.

The growing public interest in and global consciousness of environmental and social issues have intensified pressures on forest industry companies in their efforts to effectively balance potentially conflicting stakeholder demands. In this paper, we conceptually analyze corporate responsibility (CR) in forest-based industry by theoretically differentiating between three approaches driving CR: the “trade-off” hypothesis, the “profit-maximizing” corporate responsibility conjecture, and the “corporate social impact” hypothesis. We use a survey of existing studies to assess the current stage of CR adoption in forest-based industry and to form a basis for evaluating the wider importance of CR in business, as well as to formulate hypotheses for future research. In conclusion, companies covered in previous research in this study appear to have adopted CR activities mainly with the profit-maximizing assumption. As the continued growth of ethical markets and socially responsible investment (SRI) presents both a threat and an opportunity for forest industry companies, a lasting case for CR in business could only be made by embracing CR principles with radical changes in the fundamental values, policy principles and operational procedures through double-loop organizational learning.

The Russian Federation is the world's largest net exporter of roundwood. To encourage shift in exports from roundwood to value-added industrial products, Russia has set large tariffs on its roundwood exports, and announced that even higher ones would be introduced in the future. Using a global forest sector model, the EFI-GTM, we analyse how the Russian and global forest product markets will evolve towards 2020 under alternative tariff levels and assumptions on investment climate in Russia. Our results show that the tariffs decrease harvest and roundwood prices in Russia, but improve the speed of development in the Russian sawnwood and pulp industry. The results also suggest that policies which improve the investment climate in Russia are more vital than the tariffs for the Russian forest industry to develop favourably. Among the tariff settings considered, the prevailing one of 15€ per cubic meter with non-coniferous pulpwood exempted, seems most beneficial for Russia. With a tax of 50€ per cubic meter, its forest industry would not develop much stronger than in the 15€ case, but forestry would suffer from a drastic harvest decrease caused by a nearly complete stop in the Russian roundwood exports, and negligible tax income would be generated. Outside Russia, the main importers of Russian roundwood would experience significant wood price increases and decreased forest industry production. The decline in the forest industry output would be largest in Asia, due to scarce supply there of raw material substitutes for wood imported from Russia, whereas the highest relative increase in roundwood prices would take place in the EU.

In spite of many changes in European forest sector markets and industries since the 1990s, a comprehensive synthesis on the econometric and forest sector modelling research conducted in the European market context is missing. In this survey, we attempt to remedy this defect by investigating the scope and focus of the research done during 1998–2007, and identifying the gaps and areas for future research. The main avenues of econometric market analysis are methodologically and thematically found to be focused on the following five themes: 1) modelling of product demand and supply, 2) price analysis and testing of market integration, 3) market demand and price forecasting, 4) modelling industry location and 5) production technology and factor demand. Within forest sector modelling, studies on Europe can be classified into three categories: those studying the effects on the future development of the forest sector of assumptions concerning GDP growth, forest growth and technological changes; those studying the effects of forest conservation; and finally, those that are concerned with forest bio-energy. In conclusion, the application of time series econometrics in the forestry sector has in the recent years become less common in Europe in general, and little or no research has been carried out in many important fields, e.g., modelling the linkages between different market levels and multi-country market studies. This also casts some doubt on the structure and parameters of the currently more actively applied numerical partial equilibrium models, which must consider multi-level, multi-region market issues.

The forest-based industry has a crucial role in global sustainable development because of its unique raw material basis and increasing internationalisation. Using institutional organisation theory as a background this paper analyses corporate responsibility reporting in the world's ten largest pulp and paper companies, representing 25% of global production capacity. The studied companies have their headquarters in Japan, the Nordic countries or North America, and have very different geographical and cultural bases and variable company product portfolios ranging from wood-based products and printing papers to packaging boards and consumer goods. Both quantitative and qualitative economic, environmental and social metrics from the annual and social responsibility reports of the companies were analysed regarding institutionalised, culture-specific and company-specific characteristics. The results showed that regulated financial and environmental reporting leaves little flexibility for company-specific diversification in reporting. Only a few regional characteristics were identified, mainly in social responsibility reporting, while the reporting largely reflected a general North American–Nordic type of corporate responsibility and the globalisation trend of the studied companies. Regardless of the many challenges in the assessment of corporate responsibility, the concepts discussed in this paper are potentially useful tools for helping to achieve sustainable development in the pulp and paper industry.

The law of the one price (LOP) was examined in the main European markets for lightweight coated paper (LWC paper) and uncoated wood-free paper (office paper) using monthly data for the period 1992–2005. The study focused on whether floating and fixed exchange rates impacted on the uniformity of price linkages between the main markets. Bivariate cointegration analysis between 12 pairs of paper prices largely indicated uniform price behaviour between the UK, France and Germany in both commodity groups. Although there was slight indication of the extent of market integration becoming stronger after European currency union, our results were not able to strongly distinguish the floating and fixed exchange rate regimes. Despite the different end-use sectors of the LWC paper used by the publication industry and fine paper, which is dominantly for office use, the cointegration test results did not indicate behavioural differences between the two paper grades.