Forestry Files

Forest Certification

INTRODUCTION

As the human population grows, the pressure on the earth's resources increases. The strain on the forest resource comes on two fronts, commercial use of wood and deforestation due to land use changes.

Land use changes occur when forests are extracted and the land is used for other purposes. Examples of this would be developing forests into towns, farms, roads, hydro projects and mines. As more people inhabit the earth, more land is required for these other uses.

Is there a way to use wood and yet still have healthy diverse forests? This question is essentially one of sustainability. As wood is renewable, good forest management would ensure that the commercial forests that produce these goods were well cared for.

According to the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, sustainable forest management maintains and enhances the long term health of forest ecosystems, while providing ecological, economic, social and cultural opportunities for the benefit of present and future generations (CCFM, 1992). Managing forests in a sustainable way requires a recognition of the complex interdependencies of ecological, social and economic concerns. All three areas must be addressed for management to be truly sustainable. One tool for enhancing global forest sustainability is forest certification.

This article will review the topic of forest certification including history, process, main certification systems and emerging issues.

CERTIFICATION HISTORY

In 1992 a global effort to wrestle with sustainable development issues resulted in the UN Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. Although no legally binding commitments were made, the agenda 21 forestry principles set out an action plan to delve into sustainable forestry issues.

The formal international effort continued with the Helsinki Process in 1993 which developed general guidelines for the sustainable management of forests in Europe. In 1993 there was a parallel effort called the Montreal Process which developed criteria and indicators for the sustainable management of non-European temperate and boreal forests.

Efforts continued at the national level. In Canada, the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers met in 1995 to develop criteria and indicators for sustainable forestry in Canadian ecosystems.

While the formal processes of developing criteria for sustainable forest management continued, forest certification started to take shape through a non-governmental organization (NGO) channel. This innovative idea was developed during the parallel NGO Rio meetings. The concept was to develop a system for certifying and labeling forests and forest products. In other words, to use consumer purchasing as a catalyst for responsible forest management.

A voluntary, non-profit organization was formed called the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC's prime initiative was to develop a global certification system. The complexity and politics surrounding the development of the FSC process stimulated other organizations to get involved in certification, and explore alternative processes.

CERTIFICATION PROCESS

To examine the certification process we will explore the goals, the basic process and features that are essential for certification in the forest context.

The goal of certification is to support sustainable forestry through market-based incentives. This is not the only process or tool to encourage sustainability, but it is developing a global presence. Certification offers different benefits for various constituents:

  • For companies certification is a way of proving that they are responsible forest stewards.
  • For consumers certification information helps them to make informed purchasing decisions.
  • For concerned citizens certification is a process to improve the levels of forest management around the world.

In general, certification is seen by most constituents as being "the right thing to do."

Global certification processes are not new. Product safety and quality certification have been in place for decades. The basic process for credible certification is well known.

  1. Standards are developed.
  2. An independent third party carries out an audit, comparing the systems and activities of the company to the standards.
  3. A decision is made regarding how well the company has met the standards.
  4. A certificate is issued when appropriate.

There are many additional complexities and issues surrounding this basic process when applied in the forest certification field. How standards are developed and who should be certifying whom are contentious issues. The various points of view on these issues will be examined in the sections on certification systems and certification issues.

Certification is a process which will give consumers confidence that they are buying wood from sustainable sources. What features would give this process the recognition and credibility it requires? The main components are:

Voluntary Participation

Companies must be able to choose whether they wish to participate in the process. This democratic philosophy is a cornerstone to free market solutions. The fact that it is not regulatory permits participating companies to prove their commitment.

Broad stakeholder support

Sustainability encompasses environmental, economic and social goals. There are often polarized positions between the representative stakeholders. A broad cross-section is essential for fair and equal representation.

International recognition

As the market place is now worldwide, the certification process must be recognized globally to be of any value.

Market credibility

The consumers must see this process as valid and an important concept in their purchasing decision making

Legitimate criteria

The standards and criteria set must be legitimate and appropriate measures for all three of the sustainability measures.

Performance

Participating in the process must produce on-the-ground improvements.

Third party verification

Independent, accredited certifiers must be used to perform the audits.

Continual improvement

The process must be based on the principles of adaptive management.

Most constituents would be in agreement regarding the centrality of these 8 factors. The goals, the basic process and features to ensure credibility have some unanimity. However, contention arises around details such as, how to develop standards that are both global and local, how to equitably assess very different ecosystems and operations and who should do the certifying. The next two sections will look at various approaches to certification and outstanding issues.

MAIN CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS

As the concept of certification evolves, a number of certification processes are being developed. Various countries are trying to develop systems that will take into account their unique forest ecosystems, consider the political and business environments, and still meet the goal of measuring and enhancing sustainable forestry. They want to link to a global system, but still reflect the diversity of their regions. There are about 70 forestry certification systems worldwide.

In Canada the 3 main certification systems for forest management are the Forest Stewardship Council, the International Organization for Standardization and the Canadian Standards Association Sustainable Forest Management standard. An examination of these three systems is outlined below. This is followed by short review of some of the other certification systems that are important to Canada.

Forest Stewardship Council

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international non-profit organization that has developed a forestry standard based on an international set of principles and criteria to promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable forest management. The FSC has also developed a "chain of custody" labelling program to guarantee that the wood products have come from a forest which has been evaluated and certified as meeting the standard. This is currently the only forest certification system in North America to offer a product label.

FSC is a two-pronged process including a forestry performance audit and a chain of custody audit.

First, a forestry performance audit is conducted to certify forestry operations. As regional standards are not yet developed, the FSC process is not fully standardized. A temporary process has been developed to permit the process to continue in the absence of these standards.

An FSC certifier develops a localized checklist, based on the set of FSC principles This checklist becomes the evaluation criteria for the audit. FSC International then approves the checklist, and it is distributed to stakeholders for review. The FSC certification audit uses the checklist criteria to evaluate the company's on- the-ground performance.

The second part of the FSC process is a chain of custody audit to certify that specific wood products actually come from a sustainable operation. A paper trail audit is performed to see if products can be linked back to location of logging. Then, if a set percentage of the wood is clearly linked back to a certified forest a product eco-label is granted.

In British Columbia there are a number of issues remain around each of the two components of this certification process. For example, there are few FSC regional forestry standards developed, and there are some concerns surrounding those that are. It seems that these regional standards vary widely even in areas where forest ecosystems may be quite similar. This variability in regional standards may not be providing an even playing field.

In areas without regional standards, FSC certifiers must develop a local check list and evaluation criteria for each certification client. Although this is a temporary situation, this checklist process is not producing a clear and fair standard against which all regional operations are measured.

The FSC has a global principle on indigenous peoples rights. British Columbia is currently involved in many land claim negotiations with various First Nation communities. This makes it quite unclear how this principle will be applied to BC companies.

FSC has chosen to develop and approve the standards, and accredit the certifiers. In most certification situations these three processes are separated to avoid conflict of interest. For example in Canada, CSA, an independent national standards body, develops standards using a balanced matrix of interested parties. Those standards must then be approved by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), which is part of Industry Canada and therefore an agency of the federal government. SCC also accredits registrars to register companies to the standard. There is therefore a separation between the body developing and maintaining the standard and the agency approving the standard and accrediting registrars.

In terms of the chain of custody audit many Canadian sawmills and pulp mills use wood from many sources, so the ability to track 100% of the wood (the chain of custody) is not possible for most operations at this time. New changes to the percentages of wood that must be tracked to certified forests may make this achievable.

Three forest operations have been FSC certified in Canada and several are in progress.

International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international non-profit organization that has developed certification standards of precise criteria to be used consistently around the world. These rules or guidelines ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose. Standards have been developed for both product and environmental quality.

The ISO 14001 standard is a generic standard for environmental management systems (EMS) which can be applied to any industry. An environmental management system identifies environmental aspects of the operation and sets environmental objectives and targets for achievement. External audits ensure that the environmental management system is operating effectively. This means that ISO examines company's ability to "say what you do, do what you say and prove it."

  • Aspects of the company which can interact with the environment are examined.
  • Those aspects which pose the highest risk are identified.
  • Objectives and targets are developed for all high risk activities.
  • Practices and processes are examined to identify the changes required to meet objectives.
  • New practices are implemented.
  • Results of changes are compared to targets and corrected accordingly.

This process does not include specific on-the-ground standards for forest management, but is based on continual improvement in environmental planning. The result is a process-based audit, not a performance-based audit. Some constituencies feel that measuring what is actually happening in the forest is critical and only measuring process is not enough.

This system is operational around the world with many forest management systems certified. Canfor recently had all its forest operations ISO certified resulting in the largest such certification in North America.

Canadian Standards Association

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is the official standards setting body for Canada. In 1996 they produced a Sustainable Forest Management standard based on a comprehensive set of internationally recognized sustainable forestry criteria. The CSA standard includes an environmental management system component consistent with the ISO 14001 standard and a performance component based on criteria and critical elements of sustainable forest management. It also includes public participation which involves a broad range of stakeholders with an interest in the forest area.

  • Values are identified through public process and provincial regulations.
  • Goals are set, agreed to by public process.
  • Indicators are chosen locally to reflect national criteria.
  • Objectives are set.
  • Practices are outlined to meet the objectives.
  • Results are monitored over time.
  • Adjustments are made to ensure the goals are met.

This certification includes both a process (systems) component and performance ( on-the -ground) measures. The process is based on the concept of continual improvement. At this time CSA does not offer a product label.

The first certification under this system was completed in June 1999. Canfor has approximately 1.5 million hectares certified under this standard representing the largest in Canada.

Other systems

There more than 70 forest certification systems world-wide. Four of these approaches are of particular interest to Canadian industry.

Pan European Forest Certification (PEFC)

PEFC is developing an international framework for national forest certification processes in Europe. It will facilitate mutual recognition among the numerous national European certification standards. PEFC will define the basic requirements of forest certification and then assess the various processes against that standard. PEFC is a certifier of certification processes. Timber from forests certified under an accredited national process will be able to carry the PEFC label provided there is a chain of custody procedure in place. The national standards of Norway, Sweden and Finland have recently been approved.

Many non-European certification processes are very interested in gaining international recognition for their own national forest certification standard. They are hoping in the future that the PEFC process will eventually assess their processes.

Sustainable Forestry Initiative

The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) developed the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) in 1994. This is a system of principles, objectives and performance measures based on the premise that responsible environmental practices and sound business practices can be integrated. Compliance is a condition of membership in the AF&PA. Member companies can select self verification, customer verification or an independent third-party verification.

Like FSC, this process has been criticized by some for its lack of independence because program standards were developed and administered by the association. The choice regarding independent third party verification is also an issue.

Keurhout

The Dutch government has supported industry companies and unions in the development of a certification assessment system. Like PEFC, Keurhout makes an assessment of existing certification systems and provides a label for forest products produced from certified forests. Keurhout has a strong focus on 'chain of custody' to ensure a tight tracking system for certified forest products from forest to consumer.

Alberta Forest Care

The Alberta Forest Products Association(AFPA) has developed a mill and forest certification system. The process includes annual self assessments and independent third party audits every 3 years to compare performance to a set of guiding principles. This process has developed its own criteria and certifies its own auditors and therefore has been criticized for its lack of independence.

EMERGING ISSUES

There are a number of other issues surrounding certification:

  • Is forest management improving as a result of certification?
  • What is the cost of certification?
  • How can the quality of certifiers be assured?
  • How can we judge whether certification is effective or efficient?
  • Is certification compatible with free trade?
  • How can small landowners afford certification?
  • Where good forest management occurs, why add to the bureaucracy?
  • What is valid stakeholder participation?
  • Can some of these processes be harmonized into one?
  • What about considering the whole life cycle of forest products?

As certification evolves many of these issues will have to be addressed.

SUMMARY

Forest Certification was devised as a tool for improving global forest management. The concept evolved from NGO events surrounding the UN Earth Summit and the progress (or perceived lack thereof) of a series of international efforts to support sustainable resource use.

The premise is that the power of consumer choice could be used to promote products from companies that practised good forest management. The proof for the consumer would be a label or registration from an accepted credible organization that audited the forestry operations.

The process is to develop principles or criteria around what sustainable forest management looks like. An independent third party then audits forestry operations against these standards to determine whether they can be certified.

There are a number of organizations presently developing forest certification systems around the world. FSC, ISO and CSA are the main approaches currently in use in British Columbia.

References
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