‘Dialogue is our strength — but it can’t replace delivery’: Kim Carstensen on FSC’s next chapter

“When I started, FSC had nobody working in Africa,” Kim Carstensen recalls. “When I left, there was an international team of twenty-plus across the continent, and similar growth in Asia and Latin America.”

During his tenure, the system grew in people and capacity. That growth, he says, “created challenges, but also opportunities — suddenly we could deliver analysis and support that just wasn’t possible before.” It also allowed FSC to develop new approaches: verified claims and ecosystem services procedures; guidance on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC); and deeper engagement with Indigenous peoples. “I’m proud we survived that period and kept building,” he says. “FSC is a bumblebee — by design it shouldn’t fly, but somehow it does.”

“FSC is, at heart, a dialogue platform. Certification is what it currently does. The trouble starts when we try to solve technical problems by political debate.”

The democracy dilemma

Carstensen defends FSC’s three-chamber governance as the source of much of its credibility. “No other scheme copied that democracy — and in one way it’s what creates trust,” he says. But he’s blunt about the limits: “There’s a discrepancy between what FSC is — a membership democracy — and what FSC does — a highly technical certification system. Too often, members spend ages debating minute issues where the answer should be technical. After the politics, you sometimes end up with the worst compromise solution — and three times the paperwork.”

For him, the fix isn’t less democracy; it’s better division of labour. “Let the platform focus on the big questions — forests and climate, Indigenous rights, land use — and let technical standards be solved by the best available expertise.”

Slow lanes, fast needs

Carstensen acknowledges the frustration around digital traceability — from the failed Online Claims Platform to today’s partial tools. “FSC doesn’t typically buy solutions off the shelf; we develop them through dialogue. That creates slowness,” he says. “We made a mistake trying to build everything from scratch. We learned from that — newer work uses existing frameworks, like remote sensing with Esri.”

Why isn’t it done yet? “We struggled to convince enough of our members, and then our plans got folded into the EU Deforestation Regulation,” he says. “It didn’t change what we wanted — traceability, proof of origin, harvest time, conditions — but it changed where the tools had to fit. Suddenly you’re aligning with EUDR and managing geopolitics.”

Still, he ties integrity directly to tech. “Integrity is the objective of the technology — along with demonstration of impact,” he says. “It has to deliver credible volume control, geolocation and verification. And it should be modular so users can adopt pieces before everything becomes mandatory.”

Beyond certification

Carstensen’s sharpest critique is strategic. “We didn’t come up with a convincing FSC contribution to the climate and biodiversity crises,” he says. “We solved many social issues — integrating ILO core conventions, advancing FPIC, Indigenous engagement — but on the environmental front we didn’t create the new relevance we should have.”

He argues that FSC has boxed its best ideas inside certification, rather than using its convening power beyond the label. “We created concepts like High Conservation Values and verified claims — and then treated them as add-ons to an already bulky system,” he says. “What if FSC used its platform to convene solutions where global timber markets aren’t the main driver?”

He points to Russia as an example and warning. “When we exited Russia in 2022, it was painful. What mattered most wasn’t that 65 million hectares were certified — it was that the FSC platform had enabled protection of high conservation values and intact forest landscapes and had protected Indigenous Peoples’ rights in a setting where no other tool existed. That was dialogue delivering action and results. How do we build more of that?”

Markets are shifting — FSC must too

The old deforestation narrative centred on logging; today it’s agriculture and land conversion. “Global timber markets aren’t always the lever anymore,” Carstensen says. “If FSC becomes mainly a system for the European market, what good are we doing in regions where the big problems are?” He wants FSC to design offers relevant to domestic markets in Latin America and Asia — and to the public sector. “We need to be more open and relevant to governments. FSC is not strong there, but forests won’t be saved by private labels alone.”

Why governance still matters

Kim Carstensen insists the answer is not dismantling democracy but directing it. “Members are busy — motions, strategies, revisions — and the system becomes a business for itself,” he says. “We need space for members to co-create solutions beyond certification: climate mitigation in the Amazon; Indigenous livelihoods and land rights; conservation where trade isn’t the driver. That’s closer to what FSC really is and where it can deliver results that matter for the world.”

“If FSC ends up as a Europe-only label, we’ll have missed the point. The hardest problems are elsewhere.”

The bumblebee still flies — but needs direction

Despite the critique, Kim Carstensen’s faith in the model endures. “I’m convinced FSC remains the best certification system,” he says. “But we have to pair our unique democracy with faster technical delivery and a clearer role in the climate and biodiversity era. That’s how you keep credibility — and make a difference where it counts.”

_{Cover photo by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)}