Earth Day messages and actions around reducing, reusing and recycling have been a great success. But when it comes to wood products like paper and lumber, consumers have two ways to take care of the forests – buying recycled and certified products.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI Inc.) promotes responsibly managed forests in North America and around the world.  Consumers can look for the SFI label to know they are buying paper or wood from responsible sources – whether it is reams of paper, packaging, lumber or furniture.

Next time you head out to pick something up from the store; don’t limit yourself to looking only for a recycled label on the packaging.  By looking for both recycled goods and products from well-managed forests, you are encouraging responsible forest management, protecting woodlands for the future and showing you truly care about our forests and the communities that they support.

There’s a lot of angst in the marketplace these days about greenwashing – for good reason. Everyone wants to be green, whether it is justified or not.

The SFI program welcomes government and consumer programs that expose misleading labels and claims, because we believe there has to be mechanisms to help consumers differentiate solid programs with third-party certification audits from whimsical claims lacking integrity and substance.

A recent Green Living Online article, Will New Green Guidelines Help Consumers?, referenced two watchdog groups – the Competition Bureau of Canada and TerraChoice Environmental Marketing – that both accept SFI certification as a credible program.

In an environmental labeling standard issued a year ago, Environmental Claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers, the Competition Bureau says sustainability is hard to verify so the best thing to do is identify forest products as having come from a forest certified to a standard such as SFI, the Canadian Standards Association, the Forest Stewardship Council or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes.

And just this year, in its Seven Sins of Greenwashing report, TerraChoice says SFI labels meet its criteria as an eco-label that can be trusted because we are third party certified, have a publicly available standard and a transparent standard development process.

The Green Living Online article asked if the Competition Bureau’s advertising guidelines mean consumers can be more confident they are getting a straight bill of goods. It quotes TerraChoice President Scott McDougall as saying yes, as long as the guidelines are enforced.

Scott knows what he is talking about. In research for its latest report, TerraChoice found that 98 percent of more than 2,000 product claims misled consumers in some way.

I absolutely agree with him. We need rules, and they have to be enforced. The value of credible brands is diminished by false claims that cannot be trusted.

For example, there are claims in the marketplace that pretend recycled paper is “tree free”. This is not just confusing for consumers it is misleading because recycled paper still has a significant portion of fiber derived from trees. These claims should stick with the facts. If the paper contains recycled content, say that – don’t pretend it is something it is not. Misleading claims like these undermine credible claims of recycled content and cast a cloak of uncertainty over other claims and programs that are credible and helpful to consumers.

We were excited to receive support from two different groups in April— TerraChoice Environmental Marketing and the Boy Scouts of America. TerraChoice included the SFI label as a credible eco-label in its Greenwashing Report 2009, saying that our program meets three key criteria – third party certified, publicly available standard and transparent standard development process received. SFI is one of just 14 labels that the group recognizes as “legitimate.” TerraChoice’s press release, with the provocative subhead “Study Finds New Greenwashing Sin: ‘Worshiping False Labels’” is posted here. You can find SFI’s release here.

Also in April, Boys’ Life, a monthly magazine published by the Boy Scouts of America, announced that it is being printed on SFI chain of custody certified paper. “From the forest to BSA headquarters to the pressroom to the mailboxes of more than 1 million subscribers each month, Boys’ Life adheres to a strict policy of environmental responsibility,” says the group in its April 23 press release. “At its heart, Boys’ Life is about the outdoors and about teaching our young readers to be good stewards of the outdoors,” says Mike Goldman, managing editor of Boys’ Life. We are pleased that the Scouts chose SFI to help achieve that important educational mission.

Two major packaging magazines just featured SFI. Food and Beverage Packaging ran a story on our new labels, which were launched earlier this year. You can read the article here. We designed the new labels based on research and government interest in the U.S. and Canada showing a strong desire for detailed information to back up “green” claims. The research found that labels are particularly important to consumers. According to market testing conducted by Artemis Strategy Group in the U.S. and Canada, nearly 70% of consumers would choose a product that is made using responsible sources of wood fiber if there is an identifying label or claim. Looking for the SFI label is something to keep in mind as you do your holiday shopping (See video below.) For more on our labels and the research, see the SFI press release.

The other media hit was in Packaging Digest, which ran this piece, headlined “Certified sustainably forested fibers boost image of recycled paperboard – By providing evidence of compliance to reporting standards, sustainable forestry organizations can help packagers authenticate their ‘green’ packaging claims” The writer notes that “by using FSC- or SFI-certified products or becoming a certified supplier, a packaging operation can ensure a measure of protection against claims of greenwashing.” Quoted in the story is MWV’s Cliff Schneider saying, “Essentially, every packaging solution that uses MWV paperboard from one of our U.S. mills uses SFI-certified material…for customers concerned with the impact of paperboard packaging on the world for us, choosing a partner with the certified chain of custody program provides added confidence that the packages that carry their brand comes from well-managed, legal sources.”

SFI Label