An online magazine just posted a piece on the USGBC revision of the LEED standard and unfortunately, the reporter really gets lost in the woods.   I can’t post a comment on their forum, so I’ll use my own!

The Emagazine.com piece starts out well, with stats on the tremendous growth of green building in the United States (2% of the construction market in 2005, projected to be 20% by 2013).  Before you have a chance to reflect approvingly on that progress, they quickly shift to a focus on the “heated fight” and “long-running rivalry” between SFI and FSC and the “controversial effort” by the USGBC to open its system to other forest certification standards.

SFI doesn’t see FSC as a rival – when 90% of the world’s forests are not certified at all, where is the value in rivalry?  Less than 20% of the certified fiber in North America is FSC – the remaining 80% is certified to other standards that are recognized by governments and organizations around the world.  SFI wants the USGBC to create fair science-based benchmarks that will open up the credit to ALL credible forest certification systems used in North America – a long running controversy just doesn’t make sense.

A quote at the end of the article, by a character not unknown to SFI, implies that opening the USGBC standard would doom FSC and “the future of many things green.”  What a load of nonsense. That quote really makes it sound like Mr. Goldman (who is FSC’s lawyer and the author of the Forest Ethics and Sierra Club complaints mentioned in the article) is more concerned with the fate of FSC’s monopoly over LEED green building points for the certified wood credit than encouraging responsible forestry.

Besides the hyperbole about SFI and FSC and the impact of any changes, what’s missing from this story is any balance (save for one quote about how maintaining the status quo with the standard will give an unfair advantage to wood from offshore sources).  The reporter doesn’t acknowledge the views of many others who are urging USGBC to accept all credible forest certification standards.  That includes the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), a group of state forestry officials from all fifty states.

NASF has called on green building programs to accept all credible forest certification programs, naming SFI, FSC and ATFS.  These are the real experts – they are the state forestry officials who see firsthand how the standards work on the ground.   The group unanimously passed a resolution that said:

“The ATFS, FSC, and SFI systems include the fundamental elements of credibility and make positive contributions to forest sustainability. . . . No certification program can credibly claim to be ‘best’, and no certification program that promotes itself as the only certification option can maintain credibility. Forest ecosystems are complex and a simplistic ‘one size fits all’ approach to certification cannot address all sustainability needs.”

You can read more of NASF’s resolutions here http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/statements_leed_us.pdf

Governors of several states have also called for an opening of the LEED standard, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who a few weeks ago wrote to USGBC:

“The USGBC should fairly assess and include all credible forest certification programs, including SFI and ATFS systems…I urge you to quickly make a board decision to recognize well-managed wood from Minnesota and all credible forest certification programs. In doing so, USGBC can join other government agencies and green building rating programs in recognizing wood as an environmentally friendly building material.”

You can read excerpts from letters written by several other governors here http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/statements_leed_us.pdf

USGBC needs to start listening to these important voices. Readers of the Emagazine article need a grain of salt.

To read SFI’s statement on the USGBC forest certification benchmarks, click here: http://www.sfiprogram.org/newsroom/?p=245

At SFI, we continue to urge the USGBC to end a forest certification policy that discriminates against North American forests and against most of the independent forest certification standards used in the United States and Canada.

We’ve just released a detailed statement on these benchmarks and the USGBC process – you can read it on our main website here.  Here is an excerpt….

As currently drafted, the USGBC’s complex benchmark system to may result in the continued exclusion of independent forest certification standards used in North America, including SFI, the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), and the Canadian Standards Association’s Sustainable Forest Management Standard (CSA), and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC).

Read more

We’re especially interested in projects that explore topics of current importance – like the role forest certification can play in the emerging bioenergy and carbon market, or how our program can help address illegal logging or improve wildlife habitat management. We are also keen to find more ways to benefit communities. Many program participants, led by SFI Implementation Committees, are already working with Habitat for Humanity affiliates to use wood from our communities to build our communities. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this kind of collaboration – especially when it leads to green homes for people with lower incomes or Aboriginal communities.

We’ve purposely kept the grant program as flexible as possible. Each project must have a non-profit organization with appropriate expertise as a principal partner, and each must demonstrate how it supports our new SFI 2010-2014 Standard. We’re also looking for activities with a regional or wider focus. The amount of each grant depends on the project – we’ve budgeted a total of up to $400,000 for 2010.

One of the things I truly value about the SFI program is our ability to reach out to landowners and communities – this lets us achieve results far beyond SFI-certified lands. At last count, there were over 2,500 people involved directly with the SFI program. These deep roots into communities across North America keep our program and our standard relevant and strong.

The deadline for applications for the Conservation and Community Partnerships Grant Program is March 1, 2010. If you want more information, you can register for an information webinar on Jan. 26, 2010 at 1 p.m., or contact Allison Welde, SFI Director of Conservation Partnerships and Communication.

As you may know, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative&reg (SFI&reg) recently became the world’s largest single forest certification standard, and as our program continues rapid growth, we are often asked questions specifically about SFI and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.) With the 18 month long development process for our 2010-2014 Standard complete, and our new standard launched, we’ve now compiled a comparison report to help answer those questions. You can download this 4 page report on our website – SFI and FSC Certification in North America: A Summary Comparison

In addition, you may wish to participate in our upcoming webinar on this report scheduled for February 4th from 1:00 – 2:00pm eastern. To save your space for this event, please register online.

If you have a question you’d like addressed in the live event, feel free to email the question to rachel.dierolf@sfiprogram.org and we’ll do what we can to answer them all live.

While the programs do have different origins – SFI having been developed for North American forests and FSC for tropical forests – they share common goals and together are an excellent foundation for any procurement policy or forest products guideline. We encourage everyone to review this summary comparison, share it with your colleagues, staff, and stakeholders.

Kathy

You’ll see our new standard improves conservation of biodiversity, recognizes emerging issues such as climate change and bioenergy, and expands logger training in North America. It has made our fiber sourcing requirements stronger, and complements SFI activities aimed at avoiding controversial or illegal offshore fiber sources.

The review that led to the new standard certainly demonstrated the power of our partnerships – kudos to everyone involved.

We also began 2010 as the largest single forest certification standard in the world – more than 180 million acres (73 million hectares) are certified to the SFI forest management standard in North America.

Our new standard, our expanded partnerships and our growth mean we are in a great position to keep leading the push for improved forest practices and more certified forests.

This puts us in a position of responsibility that we take very seriously. We may not certify forests outside North America but our work definitely has a global reach, and a global impact. We cannot act alone, but we certainly can remain leaders in helping raise awareness of the value of forest certification.

In 2010, we’ll be reaching out to anyone who cares about forest management to work with us – not to promote one standard but to show how credible forest certification can make a difference. I hope you’ll join us.

Kathy