Certification... (cont’d)
Certification provides that assurance,”
says Bruce Eaket, Director, Forest, Paper
& Packaging Practice at PwC.
Eaket is a member of the Canadian
Standards Association’s (CSA) technical
committee that is responsible for rewriting the CSA’s forest management
standard every five years. CSA is one
of three bodies that have developed
management standards applicable
to Canada’s forests. The other two
include the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry
Initiative (SFI). A fourth North American
forest management standard that is
applicable to family-owned and
small-scale woodlands in the US is the
American Forest Foundation’s (AFF)
American Tree Farm System (ATFS). CSA
and FSC are currently in the process of
updating their standards, while SFI and
AFF recently updated their standards
in 2015.
Eak et says the Nor th American
industry leads the world in the rate
at which it has adopted certification.
It’s not an easy task given the wide
variety of stakeholders involved, from
communities, companies, and their
employees, to complex supply chains
and customers.
Council for Sustainable Development’s
( WBCSD) Forest Solutions Group
says forestry certification systems
are intended to provide accurate
and verifiable confirmation of the
environmental attributes of the fresh
fibre used in a finished product. In
other words, information about
the forests from which fresh fibre
originates. Certification can also be
used to track products through the
supply chain using chain of custody
standards for lumber, paper, and
recycled products.
Forest Stewardship
Council Canada
FSC Canada President Francois
Dufresne says transparency is key
to maintaining the credibility of
forest products. Standards must also
evolve to meet the interests of all
stakeholders, and there is an increasing
requirement for products to be traced
back to their source.
“Traceability and transparency, more
than ever, will be important for the
population buying forest products,”
says Dufresne.
“Each stak eholder has different
interests, and different forestland
attributes that they want to see
m a n a g e d a n d p ro t e c t e d,” s a y s
Eaket. “The standards bodies have a
tough job of bringing all of that into
the standard, in a way that can be
effectively implemented in the forest
and tracked through the supply chain.”
FSC’s certification system includes
three key interest areas, or chambers:
social, economic, and environmental. In
Canada, Dufresne says there is a fourth
chamber, which is an increasingly
important element to determining
that sustainability measures are met
– First Nations communities. About
80% of Canada’s Aboriginal population
depends on forests for their livelihood.
Part of the FSC’s current review of its
standards is to ensure it improves how
social issues are addressed, specifically
with Aboriginal people.
In its recent publication, Facts & Trends:
Fresh & Recycled Fiber Complementarity
(April 2015), the World Business
“Their voice is now, more than ever,
extremely important for the industry to
take into account,” Dufresne says. “We
page 16
|
I N D U S T R Y U P D AT E
need to work in partnership to take
care of the forests and also develop
forest products in a responsible way.”
FSC also wants to become more
mainstream, says Dufresne. That will not
only increase awareness of sustainability
in the sector, but also provide more
value for companies, as well as a
stronger competitive advantage.
“We need to reach a broader critical
mass of forest owners/managers, but
also consumers, and build a bigger
base for influencing how forests are
managed going forward,” Dufresne says.
Sustainable Forestry
Initiative
SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow
says the updated SFI standards address
market trends, such as helping to
meet customer commitments to
zero deforestation, but also looks at
some community groups in a different
way. For example, the SFI standards
consider the growing constituency
of First Nations in North America not
only as communities that companies
work with, but also as users of the
standard as a tool to pass on traditional
knowledge of their lands.
Abusow says the industry must evolve
to meet these and other increasing
demands for responsible forest
management, which will provide a
social license to operate and market
acceptance.
She cites buyers groups such as The
Sustainability Consortium, which is
setting key performance indicators
for the sustainable supply of products,
and GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging
Coalition.
“Our standard is always evolving to
meet those expectations,” say