A Change Management Model for the Adoption of Chain of Custody Certification in the British Columbia Value-added Wood Products Sector

With sustainability being a major driver in the global competitiveness of businesses, organizations have adopted third-party certification as a strategic tool to facilitate integration between their businesses and environmental strategies. One such initiative is chain of custody (CoC) certification, which allows tracking of finished products back to the sources of the raw materials. Despite a large body of research on CoC adoption, so far no efforts have been made to view this process from the point of view of organizational change management. An online survey of the value-added wood products sector in British Columbia (BC), Canada was conducted to determine the composition of the sector and adoption level of CoC certification. Change management constructs were measured using the ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement) framework and taking CoC certification as an example. The results indicated that the BC value-added wood products sector mostly comprises small- and medium-sized enterprises largely based in the urban areas of BC. The sector was found to have limited support for CoC certification. Key barriers in adopting CoC certification include a lack of resources and a lack of certified raw materials. Actions to facilitate a change process in the BC value-added sector are proposed.