A meso-political economy of how climate issues impact regulation: the case of the wood industry in France

This article sets out to analyse how and why the wood industry in France has recently responded to various calls for its economic models to fit better with the demands of climate change and ecological transition. By adopting a ‘politics of industry’ approach to the linkages between business practices and their regulation by the European Union, the state, and regional authorities, it unpacks the structuration of this industry, then examines the political work undertaken either to change or conserve it. The study draws upon interviews with public, private, and collective actors from throughout the industry, documentary analysis, and observation of stakeholder meetings. First, we show that in this industry, access to markets and to its factors of production (natural and financial capital) has indeed become increasingly driven by environmental criteria and practices of ecological planning. Second, however, the industry is still struggling to make its productive models fit with an institutional order that has only partially transitioned in this direction. In endeavouring to make productive models and this institutional order match up, key actors in the industry are still working politically to reach three objectives that are often contradictory: (i) build cohesion within the industry aligned with decarbonization ambitions, (ii) re-organize value chains that respond to calls for more national sovereignty for wood, and (iii) maintain ties between a productivist model that has taken on board ecological constraints and another, essentially conservationist, one which still resists change to the very definition of the overall objectives of the industry.