British Columbia has more than 130 million acres/53 million hectares of certified forests – over 40 percent of them certified to the SFI 2010-2014 Standard.

And forest professionals contribute a lot to forest certification. So it wasn’t a surprise when the Association of British Columbia Forest Professionals made certification the theme of its November/December magazine – BC Forest Professional – with articles on a range of topics, including SFI certification and audits.

In An SFI Audit: How it Works and What’s Involved, Chris Ridley-Thomas, who leads KPMG Performance Registrar Inc.’s forest certification practice, said the key factors that drive successful SFI audits are competent auditors, clear standards, reliable audit processes and transparent reporting.

He pointed out that regulatory compliance alone is not enough to achieve SFI certification. Chris said that’s because the SFI Standard has unique requirements such as landowner outreach, fiber sourcing and research, and because “. . . regulation provides a static performance target based on conditions to be avoided while voluntary standards provide a dynamic performance target based on processes to improve performance over time.”

In Interfor: 10 Years of SFI Certification, Gerry Fraser, Interfor’s Manager of Sustainable Forestry and a founding member of the Western Canada SFI Implementation Committee, looked back at some of the reasons why his company chose to be certified to the SFI standard in 2000.

“We chose SFI certification for a number of reasons,” Gerry wrote. “It meant we could integrate performance measures and objectives into the environmental management systems we had in place and SFI had broad recognition in the United States – our largest market. We found that certifying our lands gave us the incentive to improve practices and helped us strengthen and formalize many of the environmental and social actions that are part of doing business in British Columbia.”

And on the ground, he added, “the similarities between the three certification standards in British Columbia outweigh the differences.”  Gerry noted that most forest professionals in British Columbia choose SFI or Canadian Standards Association Z809 certification – and since lands certified to CSA are recognized by SFI, this means products from 95% of British Columbia’s certified lands are eligible to use the SFI chain-of-custody label.

If you’ve had a chance to check out the new section on our website – In Case You Were Wondering – you’ll know we welcome this kind of informed discussion about certification. A vote of thanks to Gerry and Chris for doing their part.

I sometimes think the debate about LEED’s unfair treatment of certified wood is so wrapped up in politics it misses the most important point – wood from responsible sources is a great choice for green building.

So obviously I was delighted to see an article by John D. Wagner in the October issue of LBM Journal entitled LEED Acceptance of SFI Now Pending: Could SFI products finally achieve LEED credits?

Wagner’s column says the U.S. Green Building Council’s decision in June to list SFI and other forest certification standards equally in a section on ‘pre-authorized certifications and labels’ in LEED Pilot Credit 43 “has potentially opened the door for granting LEED credit to SFI-certified products for non-structural wood items, such as furniture, flooring, and windows.”

The item appeared shortly after the U.S. Department of Agriculture stated in a news release: “Sustainability of forest products can be verified using any credible third-party rating system, such as Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Forest Stewardship Council or American Tree Farm System certification.”

The USDA was announcing a new report that supports what a lot of us have been saying for a long time – using wood obtained through sustainable forestry practices in green building applications promotes a healthy environment and a strong economy.

Right now, only wood certified to the Forest Stewardship Council – which accounts for about one quarter of North America’s certified forests – is eligible for the LEED certified wood credit. Most FSC-certified forests are outside of North America, and 90 percent are outside of the United States. It was nice that the USDA explicitly recognized standards that are widely represented here, like SFI and Tree Farm.

USGBC really needs to start paying attention to the evidence being put forward by the USDA and so many others, and extend the inclusive approach in the pilot credit to all LEED 2012 rating tools. This would encourage more builders to use North American wood in green building projects – and make it a lot easier for them to find the products they need.

Wagner – an award-winning author and consultant on green building – knows what he is talking about because he has been following SFI for years, and was at our last two conferences. So it means a lot to me when he says: “. . . I would urge doubters to check out SFI. It really is a solid and balanced organization, run by very decent people with a clear sense of their sustainability mission.”

USGBC needs to know it is finally heading in the right direction with Pilot Credit 43 – there is no deadline to post comments through the LEED user forum. If you want more information, check out our update link on USGBC, LEED and SFI.

There’s a lot to like about SFI annual conferences.

They bring together the SFI community so we can share ideas and explore future opportunities with experts – this year speakers included Kathryn Fernholz from Dovetail, Scott McDougall from TerraChoice, Adam Grant from the World Resources Institute, Mary White from PepsiCo, Michael Luzier from the NAHB Research Center and Jimmie Powell from The Nature Conservancy. A panel of Aboriginal leaders shared their experiences with SFI, and three SFI board members engaged in a thoughtful open discussion.

The conference in Burlington, VT, was our biggest ever, with 226 participants. We welcomed customers – like PepsiCo, IKEA, JCPenney and Time – as well as delegates from companies and communities of all sizes, Aboriginal communities, government agencies and conservation groups. They included academics, students, auditors, biologists, printers, landowners and forest professionals – it truly represented The Bigger Picture – Conservation. Integrity. Community.

I was constantly reminded that it’s the passion, the enthusiasm, the knowledge and the diversity of our many participants and supporters that make the SFI program so strong. That’s why we are able to achieve so much in forests and communities across North America.

The conference awards luncheon gave me a chance to showcase some of this good work.

The Boy Scouts of America received the SFI President’s award for everything they do to promote the value of sustainable forestry. Their Forestry merit badge encourages scouts to explore the complexity of forests, and is especially important when you consider these youth are our future leaders, our future land managers, our future consumers. The Boy Scouts of America are also firm supporters of forest certification – their Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico is certified to the SFI Standard; Boys’ Life magazine is printed on SFI chain-of-custody certified paper; and they are using SFI-certified wood for facilities in West Virginia where the 2013 Scout Jamboree will be held.

At this year’s conference, we also celebrated the achievements of the Mississippi SFI Implementation Committee, The Lyme Timber Company and the Wildlife Management Institute.

The Mississippi SFI Implementation Committee met a broad range of criteria – including leadership, logger education, landowner outreach and education, SFI program integrity, and SFI program growth – to earn the 13th Annual SFI Implementation Committee Achievement Award. I can’t say enough about the fantastic contributions our SFI Implementation Committees make. By representing SFI locally, they help us support strong communities and responsible forest practices.

The Lyme Timber Company and Wildlife Management Institute received an SFI Conservation Leadership Award for Biodiversity Research for a project that is improving forest habitat for the American woodcock in northern New York State. As always, there are a lot of other partners involved – including New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Geological Survey; National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; and Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Thanks to everyone who made the 16^th Annual SFI Conference such a great success – including delegates, sponsors and speakers. Check our conference website where we have posted speaker presentations, including the inspiring keynote address by Larry Selzer, President and CEO of The Conservation Fund and an SFI board member.

I hope to see you at next year’s conference from Sept. 11 to 13 in Milwaukee.

I was impressed with a recent article by Robert Cassidy, Editor-in-Chief of Building Design & Construction called End the Battle of FSC vs. SFI Wood in LEED. It captures concisely the inconsistencies the recent draft of LEED 2012 has, as well as the continuous unfair treatment wood receives over other building materials such as cement and steel.

I would like all stakeholders to send their feedback on this second draft of LEED 2012 by September 14^th, plus I strongly encourage you to send positive feedback on USGBC’s LEED Pilot Credit 43. This pilot credit for non-structural certified wood products (furniture, flooring, windows) lists SFI, FSC and other forest certification standards equally in a section on ‘pre-approved certifications and labels’.  We would like to keep this positive pilot credit language top of mind.

Pilot Credits are used in USGBC to test drive an idea before making it an official credit in the LEED rating tool.  USGBC refers to pilot credits as “multi-stakeholder market tests” and relies heavily on user input.

We specifically want those commenting on this Pilot Credit 43 to ask that this language be extended into all LEED 2012 rating tools and that this language be extended to also include structural wood products (not just non-structural as is currently the case.) A few examples why we believe Pilot Credit 43 is positive include:

Again, we encourage you to work with builders and architects to post comments on the LEED User blog and keep this pivotal turning point by the USGBC top of mind.

Below is Robert’s article for you to read.

END THE BATTLE OF FSC VS. SFI WOOD IN LEED
Building Design & Construction

By Robert Cassidy, Editor-in-Chief
Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Enough already! For the past decade, the USGBC has given the Forest Stewardship Council a monopoly on wood from its forests being used in LEED projects. It’s time for the USGBC to open the door to other wood certification programs.

Consider this: Sixty percent of FSC-certified wood comes from outside the U.S. and Canada. Why does the USGBC encourage the importation of FSC wood from thousands of miles away, when at the same time it offers a credit for using locally produced materials—the so-called “500-mile rule”?

Wouldn’t it be more environmentally beneficial to use locally grown wood, shipped over much shorter distances? Between them, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) have 373 million acres of certified forests. SFI alone has about 80% of the certified woodlands in North America, while FSC has only 18%. Building Teams in the U.S. and Canada are being forced in many cases to go overseas instead of being able to use certified wood from their own backyards.

Here’s another inconsistency: Why doesn’t the USGBC require other building products to “prove” their environmental bona fides to the same extent that it does wood products? Why do steel and glass and ceiling tiles and hundreds of other building products get a pass, while wood has to go through 49 mandatory benchmarks to be considered for use under LEED? Are all these products and materials so environmentally pure?

Take cement, the key ingredient in the manufacture of concrete, without which not a whole lot of building would get done. But did you know that the cement industry produces about 5% of all carbon emissions globally, a fact I was first made aware of by Scot Horst, for years chair of the LEED Steering Committee and now the USGBC’s SVP of LEED?

I would bet that very few of the 130,000 or more LEED Accredited Professionals out there would hesitate to use cement-containing concrete in their LEED projects. But are they aware that, in doing so, they are contributing to global warming, with its deleterious impact on the environment and human health?

I don’t mean to single out the cement and concrete industry, which (at least outside of China and India) is working hard to reduce its emissions. But the question remains: Why isn’t the USGBC devoting the same rigorous attention to other building products that it has so diligently bestowed on wood products?

Green Globes, the U.K.’s BREEAM, Built Green Canada, Japan’s CASBEE, and the ANSI National Green Building Standard recognize SFI and other wood certification standards. Australia’s Green Building Council recently rescinded its FSC-only restriction.

Could it be that the anti-lumber industry lobby within USGBC simply cannot bear the fact that SFI, CSA, and other certifications are just as good as FSC’s?

Click here for the original article: http://www.bdcnetwork.com/end-battle-fsc-vs-sfi-wood-leed

I recently talked to Kenneth Norris, Contributing Editor of Pulp & Paper International, about the latest SFI Progress Report, and was pleased to see a wonderful account of our discussion in RISI. The article, Good forest management much more than certification, not only did a great job of capturing the reasons behind the SFI program’s “bigger picture” approach to third-party forest certification; but also encouraged readers to consider some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for forest certification programs. At SFI, the bigger picture means integrity in the work we do; supporting communities and conservation initiatives, and promoting responsible forest management across the supply chain.

I told RISI that while I’m proud of the growth of our program over the past years, our real success comes from what we are able to achieve with our many partners – including conservation groups, public agencies, academics and community organizations.

The RISI article also points to the importance of having a choice of certification standards. A healthy competitive environment makes us all better – and that’s great for forests, for communities and for the marketplace. It will help us address what is becoming an even more complex landscape with changes in everything from climate to land ownership demands to business contexts.

I would encourage you to read the RISI post, and I welcome your thoughts.