WASHINGTON, DC — The Sustainable Forestry Initiative says it has gathered more than 5,000 signatures for its online petition calling for the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize wood products bearing certification from a variety of groups, including the SFI.
The USGBC'S Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating and assessment system, known as LEED, currently recognizes only wood products that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The USGBC is in the process of deciding what changes should be made on the issue.
When LEED standards were first developed more than a decade ago, the Forest Stewardship Council's certification process was deemed the most mature system available. LEED's exclusive recognition of that standard for wood products has fueled controversy among rival certification systems almost from the start. In the intervening years, groups such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative honed their standards and other certification offerings emerged.
Signatories of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative's petition urge the USGBC to recognize "all credible forest certification standards," including those of the SFI, the American Tree Farm System, Canadian Standards Association and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification as well as the Forest Stewardship Council. As of late today, the SFI petition had garnered more than 5,180 signatures, the group said on its website.
Recognizing other forestry certification systems, however, is not a matter of merely declaring them acceptable.
The USGBC must first decide whether and how to redefine its benchmark in LEED for certified wood products, seek public comment on any proposed change, then put the proposal to a vote of USGBC members, said Brendan Owens, the USGBC's vice president for LEED Technical Development. In that way, certification systems that meet the new definition for the benchmark would be recognized.
The USGBC recently completed its third round of public comment about proposed changes affecting certified wood products that are eligible for Materials & Resources credits in the LEED system. The council received and responded to more than 4,000 comments in the solicitation for feedback that concluded in March, Owens said. The organization is now deciding whether to seek a fourth round of comment or put the current iteration of the redefined benchmark to a vote of the USGBC's 18,000 members.
While the organization expects to make that decision relatively soon, the dispute about forest certification systems isn't likely to be quelled by it.
The Forest Stewardship Council also takes issue with the USGBC. During the public comment session, the FSC said it supports a strong benchmark for forestry products and that USGBC proposal under discussion doesn't go far enough, and in some cases gives up ground. On its website, the FSC, which has cautioned that all certification systems are not created equal, said various systems are "far apart ... in standards rigor and system governance."
Image CC licensed by Flickr user mindfulness.
USGBC Wood Policy
There is an important difference between the the organizations which abide by FSC standards, and the timber industry based certifiers. FSC began forest certification as a way of separating sustainably managed forests from logging-as-usual operations. SFI and other certification systems were created as a timber industry response to FSC; most of the industry saw FSC as too rigorous, but wanted to jump on the bandwagon somehow. Instead of working with the existing FSC organizations, or encouraging other independent certifiers, the industry created SFI as a look-alike. SFI's members are timber companies, and SFI rubberstamps the logging-as-usual that most of its members do.
SFI was set up and funded by AF&PA, an industry organization which serves the interests of timber companies. ATFS "Tree Farm" has been around for decades as a landowners' organization, but in the last few years it has been funded indirectly by industry money and it has been disturbingly industry-friendly. ATFS used to just inspect its own members' forests occasionally and advise landowners about management. Now, with industry backing, it purports to certify other organizations and program, and will certify pretty much anything without looking to see what's actually being done in the forests. FSC has stayed independent of industry funding, and has maintained its integrity and its rigorous set of standards.
USGBC developed its LEED standards based on FSC's because they were the only ones which addressed sustainable forestry. USGBC has already lowered its standards somewhat in response to pressure from SFI and other industry interests. SFI continues to press for even lower standards so that its members can all sell to USGBC customers, instead of raising SFI standards to LEED's present level or to FSC's standards. SFI and other industry-based systems continue to pressure USGBC through petition signatures, political pressure, misleading articles, public misinformation and accusations of bias, because all of that trouble is still a lot less effort than improving its members' forest operations to a sustainable level.
Some timber companies have become FSC certified. The others could too, if they wanted to. The door is open to the USGBC markets for anyone who wants to practice sustainable forestry.
SFI, ATFS and the rest are trying to get around USGBC's demand for responsible forestry, and hope that they will be able to sell UNsustainably produced wood products to unsuspecting USGBC customers. LEED was set up to assure high standards, not to falsely promote low standards in green buildings.
Forester