April 25, 2012
By Earl and Wanda Barrs
Owners of Gully Branch Tree Farm

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is about to begin the fourth public comment period on draft credit language for LEED 2012. Respected organizations are calling on USGBC to recognize all credible certification programs used in North America through LEED – including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, American Tree Farm System, Canadian Standards Association, Forest Stewardship Council and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. SFI Inc. has invited views on how USGBC should treat third-party forest certification: In this post, award-winning Georgia tree farmers Earl and Wanda Barrs talk about the value of SFI and ATFS certification to family forest owners.

For the past 25 years, my wife Wanda and I have managed 1,500 acres of forestland in Bleckly County, Georgia. My family first settled this land in the late 1800s. Now, I am proud to say that our tree farm, Gully Branch, has been recognized nationally as a state-of-the-art forest.

Gully Branch is certified to the American Tree Farm System^® standards, and our ATFS management plan outlines in great detail how we will protect and enhance our tree farm for timber, wildlife, water and recreation. I am a trained forester and Wanda has dedicated her professional life to education. Gully Branch has been used as one of Georgia’s premier outdoor classrooms and since 1994, more than 7,000 students and adults have visited our tree farm.

Offering opportunities for children to learn about how a working forest provides wood products for our homes, schools and businesses; cleans our air and water, and provides critical habitat for wildlife brings us great satisfaction. Students of all ages need to learn about the value of well-managed forests and the multiple benefits that come from healthy forests.

Across the country, families and individuals own more of America’s forestland than any other group, including the federal government or industry. In Georgia, families own more than half of the forestland in the state, and 70 percent of the wood used by industry comes from family forest owners like us. These families play a key role in providing jobs and economic vitality for rural communities.

But we will only continue to see the benefits that our forests provide – clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation, wood products, jobs and economic vitality – if we continue to work to ensure healthy markets for our wood products.

Green building markets are an important emerging opportunity for products from Georgia’s sustainably managed forests. USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system has helped increase awareness about green building, and several government agencies have adopted the LEED system for their building policies. Unfortunately, LEED standards have continued to shortchange wood as a renewable and environmentally preferable building material. LEED offers few credits for the use of wood in green building, and the credits that are related to wood products are restrictive.

In the new LEED 2012 draft, we remain strongly opposed to the USGBC’s treatment of forest certification, only recognizing wood certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest certification standard. Builders would not have the same incentives to build with wood from forest certification standards, like our ATFS Certified Family Forest, or the SFI Standard which also supports our communities and our forests.

However, we were encouraged to see some improvements in LEED 2012 that would allow for greater consideration and recognition of the environmental benefits of wood. Tools like Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Product Declarations scientifically measure and describe the environmental impacts of materials. Overall, wood tends to do well compared to other products, and by including these tools, LEED would hopefully create a greater demand for wood products in green building – strengthening markets for family forest owners like us.

When markets were healthiest, so were America’s forests because landowners had the resources to reinvest in their forests.  It is important that the USGBC do more to recognize wood grown and certified to the ATFS and SFI standard so that family forest and working forests can be sustained and help grow in the green building market.

Earl and Wanda Barrs of Cochran, GA, were recognized as 2009 National Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year, by the American Tree Farm System, a program of the American Forest Foundation (AFF). Wanda serves as Vice-Chair of the AFF Woodlands Operating Committee and on the AFF Board of Trustees. Earl serves as Chair of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Board.

The U.S. Green Building Council has announced a fourth public comment period for its draft LEED 2012 language – starting Tuesday May 1 and ending May 15.  Based on comments submitted during the third public comment period, there is clear and strong support for USGBC to open up the “Responsible Extraction of Raw Materials” credit and allow SFI certified products to gain equal recognition in the LEED rating tools.

SFI opened up our blog for comments about why USGBC should recognize SFI, including areas where our program is without question stronger than the Forest Stewardship Council – and we were both impressed and gratified by the response. (If you missed the posts, we have pulled them together in one on-line document.)

I summarized many of these feelings when I sent an open letter to USGBC leadership last week setting out 10 reasons why LEED should recognize all credible forest certification standards.

We aim to keep the discussion going through the fourth comment period, and beyond. This issue is just too important, and at SFI we care too much for our forests and communities. LEED is a precedent setting standard that can promote or undermine responsible forestry through its actions – let’s make sure USGBC knows this and acts accordingly.

Remember you have May 1 to May 15 to comment on the next draft, and if you are a member of USGBC, you have to opt in by May 1 so you are eligible to vote.

It’s been close to a month since Draft 3 of the new LEED 2012 language was released, and my initial reaction has not changed. I’m pleased to see there are credits specific for whole building Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Product Declarations, and I look forward to seeing how these credits get accessed moving forward.  However, I remain disappointed with requirements related to local sourcing and forest certification.

In the latest draft, local sourcing is overly restrictive and confusing – in some instances the local sourcing radius has been reduced from 500 miles to 50 miles – which is obviously not helpful for rural-based economies such as the forest products sector. And the “FSC or Better” language in the latest LEED Draft does a disservice to those organizations attempting to constructively engage and support responsible forestry and wood products from well-managed forests. Laura Thompson of Sappi said it well in her Environmental Quotient blog when she said she is “shocked that such a leading organization would write what amounts to me as a sloppy reference in a standard. ‘FSC or better’? ”

That’s so true. What are the criteria to determine “better”? How will they be assessed, and by whom? With so many different Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards around the world, which one will the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) pick as its baseline? Will USGBC rise to the occasion and give credits for responsible forestry beyond FSC? Or will USGBC take us all down this long path of trying to decipher the baselines and the winners?

For years SFI has been promoting choice and inclusion of forest certification standards, and we don’t believe it is constructive to be forced to explain why we are better than FSC. This type of conversation is occurring because of USGBC’s new language.

Ninety percent of the world’s forests are not certified at all, and USGBC can drive demand for more certified lands by recognizing all credible certification standards – including SFI, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), American Tree Farm System (ATFS), FSC and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). These programs are pillars of responsible forestry, and they all serve a variety of land ownerships and markets. Together we are building the future of our forests upon which forest products, multiple values and communities can be sustained.

Our advice to the USGBC is to drop “FSC or better” and instead use the criteria for forest certification set out by the National Association of State Foresters forest certification policy or better yet – recognize the 10 percent of the world’s forests that are certified, be it to FSC or standards recognized by PEFC, including SFI, ATFS and CSA.

LEED is a precedent setting standard – many retailers rely on it to define responsible forest management. The decisions USGBC makes today will determine the future health of our forests and our communities.

Here’s my message to USGBC: The future is decided now, and I hope you will play a pivotal role in keeping well-managed forests and communities alive and thriving.

What Experts are Saying

No doubt USGBC will receive lots of feedback about its draft language. We opened up our Good for Forests blog, and many others voiced their opinions on the topic of FSC or Better:

• • Dick Brinker, Dean Emeritus, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, says SFI training requirements are making a huge difference, and some states point to it as one reason for consistent improvement in their best management practices to protect water quality.
  • University of Toronto former Dean and Professor Tat Smith says that SFI certification exceeds FSC in the area of research, and that by including SFI, the USGBC would be telling researchers “it values the work and knowledge we have achieved through the SFI program.”
  • SFI Board Chair Bob Luoto, who owns a logging business in rural Oregon, says as long as USGBC limits its LEED-certified wood credit to FSC, “it is turning its back on my community as well as other communities in North America.”
  • Larry Selzer, President of The Conservation Fund and Vice-Chair of the SFI Board of Directors, says if USGBC “wants to help us keep working forests as forests, it will acknowledge SFI’s leadership in the area of responsible forestry.”
  • The National Association of State Foresters’ Randy Dye says it is “disturbing that the USGBC would continue to pick one certification program at the expense of others that were developed with U.S. forests and communities in mind.”
  • Union leader Bill Street of the International Association of Machinists says the “ideological driven ‘exclusivity’ of FSC means that systems such as LEED contribute to rural poverty and unemployment while simultaneously adding economic pressure to convert forest land to non-forest land uses . . .”
  • Auditor Mike Ferrucci says: “If the USGBC’s goal is to reward excellence, products from forests certified to SFI should be equally entitled to LEED certified wood credits.”
  • Michael Goergen, Executive Vice-President and CEO of the Society of American Foresters says “ ‘FSC or better’ is neither logical nor scientific. Especially when it continues to reinforce misconceptions about third-party forest certification and responsible forest practices.”
  • Sappi’s Laura Thompson says exclusion of SFI-certified products is based on a lack of understanding of complex supply chains because a paper product labeled as FSC certified may actually have more SFI fiber than FSC fiber “and yet USGBC is saying they will only recognize it when it is FSC certified.”
  • Pat Sirois, Coordinator of the Maine SFI Implementation Committee, says the USGBC position suggests it “does not value the many contributions made by volunteer members of the Maine SFI Implementation Committee who work hard to broaden the practice of sustainable forestry on certified and uncertified lands in our state.”
  • Ryan Clark of Capacity Forest Management, which manages forestry operations for First Nations clients in British Columbia, says: “If the U.S. Green Building Program wants to support North America’s forests and its indigenous peoples, it will expand the LEED certified wood to recognize all of North America’s certification standards.”

SFI has always been committed to green building, and we are pleased that numerous green building rating tools around the world and across North America treat all forest certification standards the same. We are looking forward to the day when we can support USGBC for making a decision that supports responsible forestry, jobs and communities across North America.

Respected organizations are calling on the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize all credible certification programs used in North America for its LEED rating system – including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, American Tree Farm System, Canadian Standards Association, Forest Stewardship Council and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. After the LEED Rating System Third Public Comment Period closes March 27, USGBC members will vote on the final draft.

Patrick Sirois
Coordinator, Maine SFI Implementation Committee

March 22, 2012

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is asking for comments on the draft language for its LEED rating system. SFI Inc. has invited views on the treatment of third-party forest certification, which must be “FSC or better” according to the latest USGBC credit language. In this post, Pat Sirois, Coordinator of the Maine SFI Implementation Committee talks about SFI community outreach in Maine.

In Maine, there are more than seven million acres certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative^® (SFI^®) Standard, and another 780,000 certified to the American Tree Farm Standard. None has LEED recognition. This is unfortunate because these lands represent about half of Maine’s forests, and they are managed sustainably by some of the best forest landowners and managers anywhere.

It also suggests the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) does not value the many contributions made by volunteer members of the Maine SFI Implementation Committee who work hard to broaden the practice of sustainable forestry on certified and uncertified lands in our state. We are one of 37 community-based SFI implementation committees across North America engaged in important initiatives such as logger training, landowner outreach and conservation and community projects.

Here’s just a sample of what we have achieved in Maine alone: We have been involved in training for more than 6,500 loggers and forest professionals since 1999. We worked with the Maine Snowmobile Association to expand the use of best management practices in recreational trail construction. We supported government efforts to enhance brook trout habitat. We partnered on a project with a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. We’re also involved in a pilot project led by corporate sponsors to make SFI certification more accessible to medium-sized landowners.

We must be doing something right. Our state has 400 nesting pairs of bald eagles and 90 percent of the remaining native brook trout habitat in the lower 48 states. The U.S. Forest Service says our water has the best quality for drinkability of the 20 most eastern states. We have one of the most developed logger and forester training infrastructures anywhere.

Yet much of the wood harvested and manufactured in Maine is not eligible for LEED certified wood credits. Thankfully, Maine Governor Paul LePage and our customers worldwide know we do a great job, and acknowledge that SFI, Tree Farm and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) all have a lot to do with our favorable environmental profile.

Last year, Governor LePage signed an executive order saying that any new or expanded state buildings must be built to a green building rating standard that accepts all forest certification programs equally. The USGBC should follow suit and recognize we have an advantage over regions of the world where forests are not certified and are not managed sustainably.

What’s lost in all this is something we in Maine are very proud of, the sustainability of the forest resource and how all certification programs have contributed to that end.

Respected organizations are calling on the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize all credible certification programs used in North America for its LEED rating system – including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, American Tree Farm System, Canadian Standards Association and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. The LEED Rating System Third Public Comment Period closes March 27, 2012. At the end of the review period, USGBC members will vote on the final draft.

March 21, 2012

I am not surprised that the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has extended the deadline for public comments on its draft LEED language for one more week – to March 27, 2012.

We received many thoughtful submissions when we opened up the Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s Good for Forests blog, and I suspect USGBC is receiving plenty of comments as well. For good reason. There are still more questions than answers on proposed requirements, such as the “FSC or Better” language for the certified wood credit and changes to the local sourcing.

We’ve posted some thought-provoking blogs that examined how the draft LEED requirements may impact forests, workers and rural communities across North America. Let’s not stop now – let’s keep the discussion going. Let’s show USGBC that the best way it can demonstrate true leadership is by recognizing all credible forest certification standards – with no strings attached.

You can submit comments through the LEED website and/or let us know what you think by posting comments on our Good For Forests blog site – and we will make sure your thoughts get to the decision makers at the USGBC.