To help answer this question, Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) launched its Biodiversity Impact Assessment Project in 2022. The initiative brought together forest managers, researchers, NGOs, brand owners and certification experts to better understand and measure the biodiversity impacts of FSC-certified forest management.
UPM has participated in the project from the beginning, through project financing, sharing its expertise and data, and providing forest land for research purposes as part of its broader commitment to enhancing biodiversity.
From requirements to outcomes
FSC certification includes requirements to protect biodiversity, safeguard threatened species and habitats, and conserve valuable ecosystems. While these requirements are an important foundation for sustainable forestry, stakeholders increasingly want evidence that they are also producing positive outcomes on the ground.
The Biodiversity Impact Assessment Project was launched to address this challenge. Its aim has been to identify practical ways of measuring biodiversity impacts in different forest landscapes and to better understand the role of FSC-certified forest management.
The project focused on FSC-certified forests and plantations in Brazil, Finland and Sweden, testing a range of monitoring methods including remote sensing, field inventories, environmental DNA (eDNA), habitat connectivity assessments and threatened species monitoring.
Encouraging findings
The findings provide encouraging evidence that FSC-certified forest management can contribute to biodiversity conservation. Across the pilot countries, assessments identified positive biodiversity impacts, including the protection of threatened species, conservation areas established through FSC requirements, and the maintenance of ecological connectivity in managed landscapes.
The project also highlighted the potential of emerging technologies. Methods such as eDNA analysis and remote sensing could strengthen biodiversity monitoring by making it easier to collect information across large areas and diverse forest ecosystems.
Perhaps most importantly, the project has helped build a stronger evidence base for understanding how certified forest management contributes to biodiversity conservation and how those impacts can be assessed in a credible and practical way.
Challenges remain
The work also highlighted important challenges. More development is needed to improve data availability and harmonize monitoring approaches across different forest ecosystems. Questions also remain around the costs of enhanced monitoring, its scalability, and how these costs should be shared across the value chain.
At UPM, we believe it is essential to proceed carefully when transitioning to a more impact-oriented approach to certification. Biodiversity outcomes are influenced by many factors, and ecological responses are not always predictable. Any transition from today's largely rule-based system should therefore happen step by step, with impacts carefully assessed along the way.
Ongoing revisions to FSC's Principles, Criteria and Indicators will help shape the future of forest management. The work will result in a new global reference standard that will guide the development of locally adapted national standards.
Looking ahead
The latest phase of the project marks an important milestone, but further research and testing will be needed before outcome-oriented approaches can be applied more broadly. Continued collaboration will be essential to ensure future approaches are both scientifically robust and practical to implement.
For UPM, participating in this work reflects a broader ambition to strengthen biodiversity management through science-based approaches and measurable indicators. As expectations for transparency and nature-positive outcomes continue to grow, developing credible ways to demonstrate the impact of well-managed forests will become increasingly important for the entire forest sector. Through projects like this, we can strengthen the evidence needed to show that sustainable forestry is part of the solution for nature, climate, and future generations.
Read more about this project and its outcome
Additional note: UPM's FSC logo license number is FSC N003385
