1
Environmental auditing and certification programs intended to promote responsible forestry and other social goals worldwide frequently validate products linked to deforestation, logging in conflict zones and other harmful activity.
2
In the last two decades, dozens of environmental auditors certified as “sustainable” the products and operations of more than 340 forest-product companies that were later accused of environmental crimes or other wrongdoing by local communities, advocates and government agencies.
3
Western governments’ efforts to stop the trade of wood logged in conflict zones such as Myanmar are failing, allowing authoritarian regimes to finance their violent rule.
4
At the same time, certification firms allow companies at the center of such trade to hold sustainability certificates, providing the public with misleading assurances as to a product’s origins.
