Comparative analysis of sustainability policies regarding forestry in selected multinational home improvement and wood furniture companies

Abstract: This study touched a specific and sensitive question: the implementation of sustainability policies regarding forestry of leading companies in a forestry-related sector. Due to a lack of reference and previous researches, it appeared that this was the first time such a kind of study was carried out. Five companies including Home Depot, Carrefour, B&Q, IKEA and Wal-Mart were chosen for this study based on the following conditions: they are multinationals, they have long tradition in business in forest selected sector and they are major global competitors in the retailer market for home improvement and wood furniture. In this study different approaches such as survey with questionnaires, sustainability report analysis, web impression analysis, communication friendliness analysis and Google search statistic were used for getting data. The study found that the two US-based companies (Home Depot and Wal-Mart) are worse not only in providing, presenting the information regarding forestry but also in communicating with researcher. Based on analyses of different approaches it was proved that all selected companies have clear sustainability policies and sustainability reports regarding forestry as an obligatory part in their activities. While study could indicate that three EU-based companies (Carrefour, B&Q, IKEA) have implemented key policies in their supply chains (e.g. start-up requirements to wood suppliers, compulsory documents for clarifying wood sources and procedure of auditing) as efforts to prevent illegal timber, it could not conclude that two US-based companies have the same motivation due to the lack of information and communication from them. All selected companies have used certified raw material and planned to use majority of certified wood products in the business, and FSC scheme was preferred by these companies because of its credibility. Some more interesting findings are being paid attention. Firstly, all informants chosen for survey were not full ready for such a kind of sensitive topics. Secondly, while companies avoided presentation of negative information on themselves, it was easy to find ebullient debate about their involvement in illegal logging. Thirdly, the study results showed the difference between two groups companies in dealing with sustainability regarding forestry: three EU-based companies performed better than their two US-based competitors, and this picture was comparable to what have been found by other previous researches investigating sustainability in general in these 3 groups. Since the topic was quite sensitive and specific for everyday business in selected multinationals, there were a great deal of issues to be discussed regarding the methodology and reliability of data.