Substantial scholarly attention has been given to the effectiveness and legitimacy of private forest governance, especially the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Research has suggested that such cooperation between forest corporations and ENGOs may develop shared norms for responsible forestry. At least initially, however, conflicts are likely to occur since these stakeholders are accountable to different constituencies.Yet there are comparatively few studies on how such conflicts have affected the development and legitimacy of forest certification on the national level, which is where conflicts must be managed. This study explores how stakeholders’ search for accountability has influenced the legitimacy of forest certification schemes, drawing on developments in Sweden. The study relies on the theoretical foundations of governance, legitimacy and accountability, and on reports from forest corporations and ENGOs. The results show that these stakeholders have continuously disagreed on the input and output legitimacy of forest certification, though the positions have changed over time, eventually making ENGOs reject forest certification schemes. These repeated conflicts have been fuelled by the stakeholders’ search for public reputational accountability and market accountability. In effect, the very meaning of the FSC label is today being questioned. Thereby forest certification in Sweden has, at least temporarily, left the suggested path to the evolution of shared norms. These results call for related studies on how to manage accountability issues and power relations in forest certification.

This article addresses the issue of to what extent forest certification schemes contribute to the enhancement of environmental protection in Swedish forestry. Our assessment is built on the analysis of three different data sets, namely: 1) the Swedish National Forest Inventory (NFI), 2) the Swedish Database for Forest Owner Analysis, presenting data on small-scale forestry practices and certification, and 3) a follow-up mail survey addressed to private small-scale forest owners with certified forest properties. Our NFI analysis indicated some minor improvements in forest conditions, corresponding with the interim target for enhanced biological diversity (dead wood, broad-leaved trees and old forests). The improvements were less evident on large-scale forest properties (certified in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council scheme) than on small-scale private forest properties (mainly certified in accordance with the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes). This contradicts a common assumption that a much higher degree of certification with stricter environmental standards will give more evident positive impacts on environmental conditions. However, results from the follow-up survey showed that more harvesting activity had taken place on certified small-scale forest properties than on non-certified properties. This could mean more negative effects on biodiversity. We conclude by stressing the importance of improving quantitative methods for determining a cause-and-effect relationship between certification and nature protection; previous research tends to report rather far-reaching conclusions based on limited data sets.

Certification represents a comparatively new means of CSR, which is important in the forest industry. Forest companies and industries have previously certified their management and products in accordance with one of the competing systems (FSC: Forest Stewardship Council and PEFC: Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes), but recently, important large-scale companies in several countries have started to certify under both schemes. This study explores the causes and effects of this change in strategies, drawing on semi-structured interviews with Swedish forest companies and industries and European retailers. The results show that public bodies, not the least in the EU, as well as ENGOs, have transformed customer demands, resulting in dual-certification. This change in strategies has the potential to alter corporate environmental practices throughout the supply chains. These results call for further research on the under-studied issue of the interaction between public regulation and private forest governance.

Forest certification, particularly that of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), is frequently claimed to constitute an effective and democratic private governance arrangement for responsible forestry. It has, however, recently been questioned whether this view holds true for the northernmost countries, which have traditionally been presented as successful examples of forest certification. Yet there is little research on the perceived legitimacy of forest certification at the local level, which is where the standard implementation takes place. This paper examines how the perceived legitimacy of forest certification is created as well as challenged at the local level in Sweden, drawing on Steffek's [2009. Discursive legitimation in environmental governance. Forest Policy and Economics, 11, 313–318] conceptualisation of discursive legitimation and Bernstein's [2011. Legitimacy in intergovernmental and non-state global governance. Review of International Political Economy, 18 (1), 17–51] definition of legitimacy as well as semi-structured interviews with forest companies, reindeer husbandry (indigenous Sámi) and environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs). The results reveal that local ENGOs question the FSC's decision-making process and results, while both the ENGOs and reindeer husbandry see few opportunities to influence long-term forest management. These findings highlight the difficulties of managing power asymmetries in certification and the challenges involved when certification standards are translated from policy to practice.