Pacific Forest Trust and the Forest Stewardship Council
May 23, 2014
Bill Wilkinson
Senior Forester
Pacific Forest Trust
PFT just celebrated its 20th anniversary. And another organization that was started in 1994 is just about to do the same: the Forest Stewardship Council, which sets certification standards for environmentally appropriate, socially responsible and economically viable forest management.
In the early 1990s several nascent certification schemes were in play, all designed to develop a set of standards that could provide buyers assurance that the wood they were purchasing came from a forest that was being managed in an environmentally sustainable manner. The FSC was designed to bring those various schemes under one umbrella, and it did. Today FSC is recognized as the most rigorous and credible global certification system for forests.
One unique aspect of FSC is in its organizational structure: It’s a membership organization comprised of three chambers, Environmental, Economic, and Social, further divided into North and South; North being comprised of developed nations (e.g., Sweden, Australia), and South of developing nations (e.g., Brazil, South Africa). International Board members are elected by the total FSC membership but serve by category, e.g., Southern Social Chamber, Northern Environmental Chamber.
The FSC system is based on the FSC global Principles and Criteria; and tiered to the P&C are specific standards, or indicators, by which certified entities are evaluated at the forest or work site.
Pacific Forest Trust has been an FSC supporter and member from the beginning. One of the first efforts of FSC was to develop, from the ground up, the standards by which forest management would be evaluated in the U.S. Regional working groups from nine areas of the lower 48 states were convened, each chamber-balanced. These groups worked for several years to come to consensus on the standards, an involved task because FSC employs a consensus-based decision-making structure. PFT was the initial sponsor for the Pacific Coast Regional Working Group, but handed the torch to other entities as the demanding task continued. The U.S. certification standards were approved by FSC International in 2005 (and since have been modified).
FSC has grown and matured since its inception. Once headquartered in Oaxaca, Mexico, in the early 2000s it moved to the more mainstream Bonn, Germany; and has branches all over the world. And it’s successful: today, more than 170 million acres and 5,500 companies are certified in the US and Canada. Worldwide, more than 455 million acres of working forest and 30,000 companies are certified, including those that are members of group certificates. Forest managers hold Forest Management Certificates, and companies that sell FSC products in the market hold Chain-of-Custody Certificates.
Despite its obvious successes, FSC is not without its critics and challenges. Soon after FSC was founded, another certification system, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, was developed by the American Forest and Paper Association, an industry trade organization. Bowing to its members’ concerns that FSC standards were too strict, the standards set by SFI were generally in line with the better practices of industry, and much easier to achieve than FSC. Today, both systems have their (rather similar) logos on products you’ll see in stores. A second area of controversy involves the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council, which awards certification in sustainable building design. While all wood can earn credits in LEED, FSC is the only forest certification recognized by LEED for leadership resource management , and this raises the hackles of other certification systems, particularly SFI. Another challenge facing FSC is allocating its resources between developed nations, such as the U.S. and Canada, respectively the largest consumer and largest producer of FSC products, and poorer nations which often value the social stability of FSC management, but are able to contribute few resources to FSC.
After PFT’s initial close involvement with FSC, it has remained and is still a member of the Environmental Chamber; but PFT’s own conservation efforts had mostly taken precedence over overt participation in FSC. This changed, however, in 2013 when Bill Wilkinson was hired as PFT Senior Forester. Bill has a long history with FSC, as a board member in the Social Chamber, an FSC-US employee from 2000-2005, and as an auditor for Certification Bodies (third parties who actually conduct the certification audits to FSC standards). Bill had to give up his Social Chamber seat on the U.S. Board when he went to work for PFT. But he was subsequently reelected as an Environmental Chamber member to represent PFT’s interests and participate once again in FSC governance. Bill’s involvement has offered a chance for PFT to play a larger role in influencing FSC policy and helping FSC address its challenges.