It’s been incredible here at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference – and educational. Meeting and talking to so many concerned and influential folks interested in climate change, environmental practices and the business of sustainability has been really encouraging. I also appreciated the opportunity to participate in the panel called Traceability: How Well Do You Know Your Supply Chain? This took place on Tuesday and it was a fascinating discussion moderated by one of Fortune’s contributing editors, Marc Gunther. Other panelists included Jill Dumain of Patagonia and Michael Kowalski, CEO of Tiffany & Co. My video post below details the panel discussion a bit more.

Kathy Abusow, President & CEO at SFI

During the traceability panel we also heard from Arlin Wasserman, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Sodexo. Sodexo employs 350,000 people worldwide and serves some 50 million people a day in 85 different countries. They provide facilities management, energy management and food service to corporations, hospitals, schools and government buildings. Sodexo is in a unique position to influence environmental practices and they stressed the importance of transparency, traceability and certification. And Arlin has a unique perspective on it – as you can see in our interview with him below.

Arlin Wasserman, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Sodexo

We were also able to spend some time with Rich Lechner, Vice President of Energy and Environment at IBM. IBM has had a corporate sustainability agenda since 1971. You’ll find a few similarities between some of IBM’s best practices and the requirement we have for independent third party auditors (it has to do with management, measurement, monitoring and transparency through third party verification). In our conversation, we talked about how sustainability fits into IBM’s corporate and business objectives, how IBM supports sustainable forestry and lessons learned re: sustainability. The highlights of this conversation are in the video below

Rich Lechner, Vice President of Energy and Environment at IBM

Kathy Abusow, President & CEO at SFI

I recently had the opportunity to work with well-known research and consulting firm Info Trends on a webinar about sustainability and it is now available on their web site. For those that aren’t aware, Info Trends is a leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. Like virtually all market research firms, Info Trends has clearly seen that their customers are incorporating sustainability into their business considerations, but see that they are also thirsty for reliable information. Enter SFI…

The firm recently released a study on sustainability that, among other things, revealed that social responsibility and customer demand are two primary motivation factors for printers’ adoption of green policies, though marketing and public relations benefits do factor in as well. Soon after the report was released, SFI was approached with an opportunity to chime in on some of the findings and provide the printing sector with more information about forest certification and the role of SFI. We recorded the webinar before Christmas and I am now thrilled to let you know it is available on Info Trend’s website. The presentation is available in three parts – click below and follow the “Flash Media Video and Animation” link at the bottom of the page to stream the presentation online.

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 1: Forest Certification and an Overview on SFI

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 2: SFI for the Paper and Printing Industries

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 3: Marketplace Trends

We are more than happy to prepare these types of webinars for our members and certificate holders – email Karen[dot]brandt[at]sfiprogram.org for more information.

I never associated “monopoly” with sustainable forestry standards. At least not until today when I read Craig Webb’s story in ProSales, “FSC Hikes a Fee, Goes After Competitors.” Webb reports that the Forest Stewardship Council’s General Assembly approved a policy motion directing FSC’s administrators to prohibit certifying bodies “from falsely promoting less rigorous competing standards as equivalent to the forest management and chain of custody standards of FSC.” It calls for a review of those certifying bodies’ promotional media when those groups come up for accreditation, and predicts that one result of this initiative will be “fewer certificates being issued for competing schemes.” Unlike other motions for the General Assembly, which often are initiated by global, European or Third World organizations, this one was proposed by Bill Hayward, president and CEO of Hayward Lumber, Monterrey, Calif., and chairman of the FSC’s U.S. arm.

Webb writes that “FSC dislikes this trend in part because it sees its standard as being better than the others.”

We all may feel that way about our standards. But if we are all truly dedicated to managing our forests sustainability, we would focus on the fact that only 10% of the world’s forests are certified. There is a lot of catching up to do. Why spend our time arguing over who the A+ student is? Why don’t we focus where we should – on the 90% that isn’t certified. Sure, I want SFI to continue its rapid growth, but I also want to see more certified land. Attempting to force everyone to use a single standard is a step backwards. The last thing our forests need is a “monopoly” certification standard. Monopolies serve no one’s interests: they drive up costs, limit improvements and reduce choice for customers and consumers. The increase in dual and triple certifications over the past year clearly indicates that the market place also supports this position.

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