Pity the shopper who wants to buy "green" paper or forest products.
They can choose products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).
Only the most dedicated deep-green consumer can be expected to understand the differences between the two.
And few know there's a war of words going on between backers of the FSC and SFI.
Todd Paglia, executive director of the activist group Forest Ethics, says this about the SFI:
SFI is dangerous because it is a lie -- it tells consumers that the product bearing the label is green when it isn't. SFI allows logging in old growth, logging in endangered species habitat, clearcut logging on landslide prone slopes above salmon streams…. In other words, business as usual with a "green" façade.
When industry is helping write the rules and set its own standards they will be high on rhetoric and extremely low on substance. That is SFI: This is a fake eco-label of, by, and for the forest industry.
Not surprisingly, this kind of talk angers the folks at SFI -- so much so that they approached The New York Community Trust, a foundation that supports Forest Ethics, to complain. On its website SFI says:
ForestEthics continues to peddle pulp fiction about the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, repeating the same old inaccurate and misleading information.
With just 10 percent of the world's forests certified to any certification standard, groups should work together to increase responsible forestry. Instead, ForestEthics spends energy and resources on well-funded attacks to discredit SFI, often citing outdated, incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information.
Such conflicts aren't unique to the forest products industry, although the rhetoric here is unusually heated. Eco-labels are supposed to guide consumers to environmentally friendly choices, but they have become so numerous -- more than 300, by some estimates -- and so confusing that consumers now need their own guides to eco-labels, like this Greener Choices website from Consumer Reports. Meanwhile, organizations that create standards have formed their own organization, called the ISEAL Alliance, to separate good standards from the not-so-good. It's like a Good Housekeeping seal for other seals. With words like "natural" and "sustainable" and "green" being thrown around, it's likely that some consumers just give up trying to figure out which claims are meaningful and which are not.
In the forestry wars, Forest Ethics announced a victory this week: Seven companies, including four from the FORTUNE 500 -- Aetna, Allstate, Office Depot and Symantec -- said they would phase out their use of the SFI label.
Since begenning FSC refused
Since begenning FSC refused to recognise any other accredited certification system as a credible system. This war is obviously discrediting the whole forest certification system whatever are the good reasons supported by FSC. I personnaly attended the launch of a national FSC office in Europe over two days. A plein half a day was dedicated to destroy the image and sytem of PEFC certification (SFI choice for Chain of Custody). When you know that 28 european countries adopted PEFC as a national scheme, this type of speach is rather strange and instead of promoting forest certification, instilate a doubt about the credibility of a "single" system. Foresters and customers are in fact fed up of such a war, and in many occasion, I heard from them a request of more "cooperation" and "exchange" to give an evolution towards more and more sustainable practices. ...Let' have a dream... To my mind, both system are credible, and the day foresters will adopt both certifications for their forests (it is on the way in many coutries), this question of war will be solved, part of the BIZ sold as PEFC, the other part sold as FSC depending on the market demand, and the cnies marketing.
FSC: the Enron of
FSC: the Enron of forestry.
The FSC may have been founded by environmentalists such as Simon Counsell, but sadly - as this 2008 interview with him explains - they very quickly moved away from their founding principles and started to win 'a race to the bottom of certification':
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0417-hance_interview_counsell.html
I became interested in their damaging practices thanks to their destruction of species-rich native bogland in Ireland, which they then replace with monoculture forests of non-native species. The environmental impact is devastating:
http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2008/11/06/FSC_s_certified_disgrace_Ir...
and there are examples of FSC-sponsored environmental damage worldwide:
http://www.fsc-watch.org/
Friends of the Earth no longer endorse the organisation: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/sustainable_timber_fsc.html
Sadly, Greenpeace do, and even have a seat on the FSC's board, saying they can do more good on the inside. The evidence is that they can't, and I think it's going to prove very damaging to their reputation in the long run, which will truly be a tragedy.
So, FSC or SFI. Is it a question of better PR, or better practices?
This is a good article. I
This is a good article. I think it should be noted that this great debate impacts much more than the paper industry. It impacts furniture, flooring, and other building materials.
This is such a complex issue there really is no hope that consumers will really ever be able to discern the facts or make real informed decisions. You practically have to become an expert on the forestry industry and historian of the certification processes to get a grip on it.
I'm a bit of a green building geek myself and I've yet to sort it out! But I do have sympathy for the small, family owned growers who have a hard time justifying the expense that goes along with FSC certification. I hate to think of these American family-owned businesses being squeezed out because of a certification process they can't afford when many (maybe most?) do practice responsible forestry. That opens the door for more imported wood, and what is green about that??
I can't say I have an opinion. But if anyone thinks this is a black and white issue, they are mistaken.
More ecolabel and
More ecolabel and certification resources
Nicely written article. Clearly consumers need more help deciding which labels are which and you listed three meta-level organizations or "sustainability transparency tools" that help consumers make sense of labels and certificates. (GoodGuide, Sustainability Consortium, and UL) Another good resource is the Ecolabel Index http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ Businesses might want to check out ekobai http://www.ekobai.com/, which helps connect businesses selling and buying certified products.
Marc, thanks for this
Marc, thanks for this thoughtful article on the SFI & FSC debate. You can count Healthy Building Network among the NGOs that have continued to support FSC as the more environmentally and socially responsible choice, and to advocate for "FSC or better" LEED credit requirements. Apart from the differences in restrictions on logging in old growth forests, a major distinction between the two certifications is the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in the multi-stakeholder FSC process. An opinion piece by HBN's Executive Director Bill Walsh last year highlights our position and some of the history behind it: http://www.healthybuilding.net/news/100322our-clear-cut-choice.html.
Also, may I recommend another great tool for bringing clarity to the debate and identifying environmentally preferable products: The Pharos Project, at www.pharosproject.net, which is a project of HBN. Pharos includes a Building Product Library (with comparative scores on renewable and recycled content and other environmental and health attributes) and a Chemical and Material Library (which now includes endangered species warnings for tree species and other biobased materials, in addition to health hazard warnings for chemicals).
A point of correction re:
A point of correction re: FSC. Certification audits are performed by accredited 3rd party auditors, who are paid for their services by the companies being audited (just like in the CPA world). FSC is not paid by the companies being certified. The accredited certification bodies (auditors) pay a fee to FSC.