Forest certification in Calabria (Italy): attitudes, preferences and willingness to pay of manufactures and enterprises of forest-wood chain

Abstract

Forest certification in Calabria (Italy): attitudes, preferences and willingness to pay of manufactures and enterprises of forest-wood chain.Forest certification was born in the early 90s of the twentieth century in order to protect tropical and sub-tropical forests against a progressive deforestation and degradation. Forest certification is a valuable instrument for environmental protection and a useful tool of green marketing for forestwood chain enterprises. In the last decades, in developed countries there has been increased consumer awareness of environmental protection and environmentally friendly wood products. This consumers' attitude is related to the consumers' willingness to pay a premium price for environmentally friendly wood products. In the international literature, some studies have investigated the consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for several certified wood products with different prices, while few studies have analyzed the willingness to pay of manufactures and enterprises of forest-wood chain for certified wood products. In addition, in the international literature there is a knowledge gap concerning the manufactures or consumers' willingness to pay for local wood products compared to equivalent products from other geographical areas. Starting from these considerations, the main aims of this study are: (1) to analyze the wood manufactures' willingness to pay a premium price for certified wood products; (2) to investigate the wood manufactures' attitudes and willingness to pay for regional/local wood products. The study was conducted as part of the "Ambi.Tec.Fil.Legno" project involving 127 manufactures and enterprises of forest-wood chain located in Calabria region. At the end of the questionnaire survey, the information provided by 40 manufactures and enterprises of forest-wood chain were processed and analyzed (response rate 31.5%). The results show that the main factors that influence the purchase decisions of enterprises are the trust in the seller and the durability of the product. Concerning the manufactures' willingness to pay for certified wood products, 40% of sample of manufactures is willing to pay a premium price with a mean value of 1.55%. A similar percentage of wood manufactures and enterprises (40%) are willing to pay a premium price to purchase local wood material with a mean value equal to 3.25%. The results of this study can support the decision makers in the definition of new strategies to enhance the forest sector in Calabria highlighting the potential benefits of forest certification and use of local wood at regional level.

The Eucalyptus Firewood: Understanding Consumers’ Behaviour and Motivations

“…Moreover, snowball sampling recruitment was also adopted, using the interpersonal relations of the authors (via email) to reach a larger number of participants [24]. For these reasons, the sample was not representative of the Italian population, which happens in many studies about consumer behaviour where a convenience sample was used [21,[25][26][27][28][29][30]. Subsequently, 18 respondents were excluded from the survey because they stated not to be domestic firewood consumers.…”

“…In the first section of the questionnaire we analysed the consumers' attitudes about firewood species, ethical aspects of the choice, geographic provenience (Prov) (i.e., if firewood comes from tropical countries or Mediterranean ones), and the origin of firewood (Origin) (if firewood comes from an agro-forestry plant or natural stand) [29].…”

“…Moreover, another important aspect considered in the survey is consumers' motivation to use eucalyptus firewood. These aspects were investigated by asking questions related to curiosity (Curiosity), to technical characteristics (Energetic), as well as to environmental aspects [29]. In particular, the question about curiosity was "You are willing to consume domestic eucalyptus firewood for curiosity (How much do you agree with the following statements?…”

Economic assessment of RFID coupled with open source technologies for wood traceability in Calabria

“…Tuttavia nella maggioranza degli scenari analizzati si ottengono potenziali incrementi di prezzo del legname inferiori al 5%. Paletto et al (2017) riporta come, per quanto concerne la Disponibilità a Pagare (DAP) per l'acquisto di prodotti legnosi certificati, il 40% delle imprese di seconda trasformazione del legno intervistate ha dichiarato di essere disposto a pagare un premium price con una DAP media pari a 1.55%. Un'analoga percentuale di imprese (40%) si è detta disposta a pagare un premium price per l'acquisto di prodotti legnosi locali con una DAP media del 3.25% (Paletto et al 2017).…”

“…Paletto et al (2017) riporta come, per quanto concerne la Disponibilità a Pagare (DAP) per l'acquisto di prodotti legnosi certificati, il 40% delle imprese di seconda trasformazione del legno intervistate ha dichiarato di essere disposto a pagare un premium price con una DAP media pari a 1.55%. Un'analoga percentuale di imprese (40%) si è detta disposta a pagare un premium price per l'acquisto di prodotti legnosi locali con una DAP media del 3.25% (Paletto et al 2017). Tali considerazioni mostrano come, utilizzando tecnologie open source sia possibile già da subito una implementazione di tali sistemi in quanto economicamente sostenibili, a differenza di quanto precedentemente valutato da Timpe (2006).…”