At the global level, two Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) systems, i.e., protocols and certification, have grown significantly in standardizing forest management practices. Protocols are driven by multi-stakeholder groups that outline a series of standardized criteria and indicators agreed upon by participating countries. On the other hand, forest certification involves market-driven multi-stakeholder standardization, assessment, and recognition of a forest management entity’s compliance with standards established by the respective certification program. In this study, we compare the trends in numbers and types of changes that have taken place over two consecutive periods (1995-2005 and 2005-2015) through case studies for three protocols (International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), Forest Europe (FE), and Montreal Process (MP)) and two certification schemes (Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)). A qualitative review of the respective systems’ institutional histories is followed by a graphical representation of the observed changes. We then compare the relative quantitative changes in the categories of criteria and indicators in the standards of the selected systems. We find that FSC may have been instrumental in other SFM systems changing the ecological types of Criteria & Indicators (C&Is) in both periods. Changes in SFI’s standards correspond to its institutional changes from a purely industry-driven system to being an independent organization. Furthermore, we find that ITTO has been more reactive in changing their C&Is as compared to MP and FE, which may have played a vital role in the standardization discourse. Nevertheless, based on our results, we argue that considering socio-economic institutional elements towards trends and developments in all the five standards is important. The selected five SFM institutions can use our findings regarding the trends in the standardization of global forest management to achieve their respective goals for ensuring the sustainability of forest resources worldwide.

在全球层面，两个可持续森林管理 (SFM) 系统，即协议和认证，在标准化森林管理实践方面得到了显着发展。协议由多方利益相关者团体推动，其中概述了参与国同意的一系列标准化标准和指标。另一方面，森林认证涉及市场驱动的多方利益相关者标准化、评估和认可森林经营实体遵守相应认证计划制定的标准。在这项研究中，我们通过三个协议（国际热带木材组织 (ITTO)、欧洲森林组织 (FE) ), 和蒙特利尔进程 (MP)) 和两个认证计划（森林管理委员会 (FSC) 和可持续林业倡议 (SFI)）。对各自系统的制度历史进行定性审查后，对观察到的变化进行图形表示。然后我们比较了所选系统标准中标准和指标类别的相对数量变化。我们发现 FSC 可能有助于其他 SFM 系统在两个时期改变标准和指标 (C&I) 的生态类型。SFI 标准的变化与其从纯粹的行业驱动系统到独立组织的制度变化相对应。此外，我们发现与 MP 和 FE 相比，ITTO 在改变他们的 C&I 方面更具反应性，这可能在标准化讨论中发挥了至关重要的作用。尽管如此，根据我们的结果，我们认为考虑所有五个标准的趋势和发展的社会经济制度因素很重要。选定的五个可持续森林管理机构可以利用我们关于全球森林管理标准化趋势的调查结果来实现各自的目标，以确保全球森林资源的可持续性。