Competition among environmental certification systems has created considerable demand for transparent comparison. Drawing on the case of forest certification, this article presents an analytical framework for comparing certification standards and government policies according to their policy approach and environmental threshold requirements. A detailed analysis of existing policies is applied to one key indicator, i.e. riparian buffer zones, where it reveals clear differences among the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) regional standards and among the FSC, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification systems. The FSC regional standards of British Columbia and the Pacific Coast contain quantitative riparian buffer zone thresholds, with the FSC British Columbia standards being the most restrictive. The FSC Southeast standards are comparable with the SFI standards in deferring to state buffer zone guidelines but making those guidelines mandatory. The systems-based CSA standards contain no substantive prescriptions. Most certification standards appear to closely mimic government policy approaches. Standards that cover multiple jurisdictions resemble an averaging of the prescriptiveness and performance thresholds of government policies, resulting in an increase in some state requirements and no additional requirements in others. These findings lay the groundwork for further explanatory research on the interaction of state and non-state policies as well as the systematic comparison of policy effectiveness.