In a recent article, the Timberjay reported on the most recent forest certification audit done by Bureau Veritas, the agency hired to assess whether MN DNR met the Forest Stewardship Council’s sustainability standards. If the DNR passes the audit, which they always have, the timber harvested off state lands can receive a premium in the marketplace. 
The article reported on The What: Bureau Veritas’s audit seemed to favor timber harvesting over other measures of forest sustainability, like biodiversity and wildlife habitat, that are supposed to be considered as part of meeting the FSC standards. They also apparently issued their audit report before their field auditing team set foot on the ground and ignored concerns by outside watchdog groups which are supposed to be considered as part of an audit, all while the DNR muzzled those within the agency who believed the DNR was not meeting some important FSC standards.
What the article didn’t cover was The Why: Auditors like Bureau Veritas are paid to do the audit by … wait for it … the DNR, the very organization they are supposedly holding to account. This gives the DNR leverage over how the auditor applies the FSC standards, which allow considerable room for flexibility and fudging. I learned this when I worked for the DNR and took the same training auditors do to qualify for being members of certification teams. 
The financial incentives for Bureau Veritas to go easy on the DNR are substantial. If the DNR isn’t happy with the results of their audit, they can go “audit shopping” and hire one of several competing companies to do future audits. The DNR is the largest single FSC-certified land manager in the U.S., so the financial stakes for Bureau Veritas — or any other auditor — provide a compelling incentive for an auditor to issue the most lenient audit possible.
There are checks and balances in place intended to prevent this. The reality, though, is the financial incentives to keep the audited client happy are so large that some degree of “greenwashing” is inevitable. After all, this issuer-pay model is the same one used by bond-rating agencies that gave investment banks sterling ratings on their subprime mortgage-backed securities leading up to 2008. We know how that turned out: The next-to-worthless investments tanked, triggering the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. 
Can forest certification nudge landowners towards more sustainable, biologically-sound management? Yes. Does it go as far as it could to bring industrial and government forestlands that are falling short of FSC standards into compliance? No.
The next time you go shopping for a certified wood product, keep in mind that you’re getting the best watered-down version that money can buy.   
Steve Wilson
Retired DNR ecologist
Isabella