When I joined SFI Inc. last month, I knew I would have a chance to work with many partners who share my interest in sustainable forest management and third-party forest certification.

Last week, I learned just how much these partnerships can achieve. The second phase of an innovative pilot project in Maine, involving Time Inc., Hearst Enterprises, National Geographic Society, Verso Paper Corp. and Sappi Fine Paper North America, led to 790,000 acres/320,000 hectares of additional forest lands being certified to the SFI Standard.

Now that’s worth celebrating. These corporate leaders understand we need more certified lands to address the growing market and customer interest in how resources are managed – and they are willing to act. We are interested in replicating this kind of work in other locations, which is why I am currently looking to identify corporate sponsors.

That’s what I have always liked about the SFI program – it has a strong foundation as an internationally recognized forest certification standard then builds on this by supporting responsible forest management locally. It draws on the strengths of diverse partners to improve forest practices across North America through landowner and community outreach, through science, through market awareness.

I’m a registered forester and I have been involved with the forest sector for 31 years so I’ve watched SFI from its inception. I’ve seen how it has helped to improve practices and advance knowledge over time. This view has been reinforced in the last month as I met with members of the vast SFI community – with SFI Implementation Committees, forestry associations and family forest owners; with suppliers and customers.

There is so much happening, and so much more we can do. Let me know if you have ideas about how we can grow certification or if you want to join with SFI and its many partners. Together, we can strengthen third-party certification and spread the word about the benefits of the SFI program – and build more successes like the Maine pilot.

Barry Graden recently joined SFI Inc. in the new position of Director, Southeast U.S. Community Outreach. He will build on the program’s community activities to promote and strengthen forest certification throughout the United States, with emphasis on the south. His office is in Greenville, SC, and he can be reached by email or telephone at 864-451-7958.

It demonstrates how we are growing on the ground – 195 million acres/79 million hectares certified to date – and how we are being increasingly recognized by leading agencies around the world.

Check it out. You’ll see that this fall alone, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Education and the International Green Construction Code all recognized SFI and other credible certification standards. On top of this, PEFC International members re-endorsed our forest standard. You’ll find many other statements in our fact sheet SFI: What Others are Saying.

Even the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is starting to look at things differently. LEED Pilot Credit 43 for non-structural materials currently gives equal credit to all forest certification standards including SFI. And in the LEED for Homes draft 2012 language, the USGBC has removed the FSC credit so SFI program participants have a level playing field. In a recent article, green building writer John Wagner asks if Pilot Credit 43 might open the door to LEED credits for SFI certification. And don’t forget to post a comment to let the USGBC know Pilot Credit 43 is on the right track!

Of course, this recognition would not be possible if it were not for the efforts of hundreds of SFI program participants across North America and the countless number of partners working with us and our SFI Implementation Committees to extend the reach of SFI certification so we can build knowledge and improve forest practices on certified and uncertified lands alike.

Everyone who supports forest certification and the SFI program should take a bow. It’s an honor to work with you, and such a pleasure to see the concrete results of our efforts.

If you take a look at our conference agenda you will see we have lined up local and international speakers who will talk about partnerships yielding benefits for the forest products marketplace, communities, First Nations, and government agencies throughout North America and globally. Keynote speaker Linda Coady, Distinguished Fellow, University of British Columbia and Vice-President of Sustainability, Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee will talk about Certification, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability – The Next Generation.  We’ll also be making some exciting announcements.

We will be posting video from conference speakers as well as pictures from the event on our Annual Conference webpage – so check it out if you are not able to join us in Vancouver and take part virtually.

This is the 5th year SFI has participated in the USGBC’s Green Build Expo, and over the years the SFI team has spent countless hours in the exhibit hall talking with architects, developers, and policy makers, among others, about sustainability, about the important role of forest certification, and about the evolution of green building.

It is clear to see there really is an evolution – not just for innovative products and building systems, but evolution in people’s environmental consciousness. Across the board, willingness to incorporate sustainability into our lives and adopt workable measures to protect the environment is increasing.

For example, since 2000, membership at the USGBC has more than tripled, and the market value of green building is projected to keep drastically rising as well. According to McGraw-Hill Construction, the green building market at comes in at around $12 billion value in 2008 and the report projects growth to $60 billion value by 2010. (As an aside, we did a special insert with McGraw-Hill and BusinessWeek magazine about mainstreaming “green” and construction – you can download it here: http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/feature-businessweek-2008.pdf )

For SFI we’ve seen double and triple digit growth across our program. We now have close to 150 million acres of land certified across North America, and over 320 Chain of Custody Certificates. For the year 2007, we calculated a 386% increase in CoC certificates, and with 2008 nearly over, I can assure you that momentum is strong!

The movement is clearly growing.

These programs and organizations themselves are changing too. For SFI, a clear example of how we reflect emerging public values and adapt to new information and science is our public review process which happens every five years. You can learn more about that on our site here: http://www.sfiprogram.org/standard-development-process.php

And as I am sure you all know, the USGBC is considering revising their system to recognize numerous forest certification programs, including SFI. If you didn’t catch it already, you can read my blog post about LEED and SFI here: http://www.goodforforests.com/archives/89

While we’ve participated in the USGBC show as exhibitors for a number of years, today I had the honor of addressing the crowd and introducing a long-time champion of green building, Architect Stefan Behnisch. The USGBC have posted a videostream of the session – you can watch it here: http://www.greenbuild365.org/GreenExpoVideoDetail.aspx?GreenExpoID=19

In addition to being the founding member of international design firm Behnisch Architekten and US-based Behnisch Architects, Mr. Behnisch has lectured at universities around the world. His approach to sustainable architecture is highly acknowledged in Europe and all over the world. He was recently deemed “Environmental Champion” by EnvironDesign Journal and Interiors & Sources and his buildings have been honored by prestigious institutions and industry organizations alike.

I was interested to read some of Stefan’s views on sustainability. In one interview, he said that sustainability is “not a miracle, or secret science, but is mostly common sense and a significant amount of work and effort.” He also said that architecture and environmental responsibility are eternally meshed and “all architects should be practicing responsibly.” I couldn’t agree more.

By the way, have a look at the new ad we launched at GreenBuild: http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/ads/ad-solidwood-twoways.pdf. It is one of my favourites for sure.