Abstract
This study investigated the classification and amount of FSC-labeled products sold in large retail stores in Morioka，between November 2014 and March 2015. The FSC defined its original product classifications as wood products，pulp and paper products, and NTFPs. This study checked 25,868 products in 26 product groups. First, the study found 192 FSC-labeled products among 19,875 products in six product groups. Fourteen of these FSC-labeled products were found in two stores. Therefore 178 kinds of FSC-labeled products were analyzed in detail. The six groups were “engineered wood products,” “household articles,” “stationery of wood,” “paper,” “stationery of paper,” and “printed materials.” Twenty license codes were identified in 178 kinds of products, and 90% of these license codes were found to be valid. Second, 82 of these FSC-labeled products were manufactured in Japan, and the other 96 FSC-labeled products were foreign manufactured. Third, FSC labels covered less than 5.7% of the product surface, and by color 74.7% of the FSC labels were black-and-white or gray. Finally, no clear price differentials were observed between FSC-labeled products and alternative products. FSC-labeled products were not necessarily expensive than non-labeled alternatives.
