Forest Stewardship Council Forest Certification Impacts: The Case of Lithuania

The new Forestry Strategy and Green Deal rely on sustainable forest management. Forest certification helps advance this objective. This study aimed to assess the social, ecological, and economic impacts of forest certification on forest management. The study presents an assessment methodology for the impact of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard’s application, and, based on it, a case study on forest management practices in Lithuania. This study helps clarify what constitutes impact in the context of forest certification and how it can be operationalised using indicators. The findings show that the major difficulties encountered were related to social factors regarding the FSC standard: the level of knowledge of employees and contractors of forest management organisations about the requirements of the forest stewardship standard, and community relations were not in all cases sufficient. The economic impact of the standard is positive, encouraging the use of local forest-related services and indicating that the price of FSC-certified wood is higher than that of non-certified wood. The study contributes to the scientific literature by proposing an indicator-based framework for assessing FSC implementation and by situating the Lithuanian case within the broader European context of forest certification governance.