A growing number of Swedish forest owners are choosing to certify their forestry. However, there appears to be a lack of field surveys which describe differences between certified and non-certified forests concerning the degree of completed environmental considerations. In order to know to what extent certified forests contribute towards improved environmental consideration, we need studies on how large the difference is in relation to non-certified forests. Differences between certified and non-certified forest clearings were quantified through an inventory of the number of retention trees, dead trees and snags. The result showed that the retained number of the investigated parameters varied greatly between individual clearings, regardless of certification status. However, the results suggested that the certified clearings had an average higher incidence ofthe investigated parameters. In comparison to statistics of southern Sweden's average, the results also suggested that the certified clearings (from the county “Blekinge”) most of the time had a higher incidence of the investigated parameters, while the non-certified clearings most of the time had a lower incidence of the investigated parameters. The environmental considerations on neither the certified nor the non-certified clearings were found to be near the highest amount that could be required by the Swedish forestry act. This observation is interesting, especially since the certified clearings would be expected to maintain a consistently high level in relation to the law requirement.