Forest Certification
Synergies Social Forestry; Strategic Geography, Net Carbon Accounting
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Forest Certification (FC) systems offer a one-stop well-tested general approach to supporting responsible forest management. Through third-party audits of managed forests and chain of custody (CoC) through the supply chain, adherence to standards is assured by certification bodies and can be communicated to the public. FC may be a good first step to help consumers specify and evaluate their own sustainability goals.
Certification Examples
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Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) endorsed national systems, and Legal Lumber in North America.
Sustainability Benefits
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Certification builds customer confidence in “paying for” a wide range of claimed sustainability benefits.
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Certification aims to elevate the market value of sustainably produced wood and incentivize improved practices.
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Certification standards, to varying degrees, promote Sustainable Forest Management practices.
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Certification of forests can reduce deforestation and protect high conservation values, biodiversity, and ecosystem integrity.
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Certification can protect soil carbon beneath forests through management practices which reduces emissions..
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Wider usage of and familiarity with FC systems increases their capacity to transform the market.
Challenges
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Certification can represent a wide range of goals, rigor, enforcement, and measurable benefits, both between different schemes, and even within a scheme such as FSC.
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Certification claims and benefits tend to be generalized and may not provide strong connections between the goals of consumers and the specific forest landscapes or communities impacted.
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Certification has been criticized for failing to deliver on its promises due to poor enforcement, lack of transparency, corruption, leakage and unrecoverable costs to producers. (One response to this challenge is to increase demand for certified products)
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Chain of custody certification does not comprehensively address environmental and social impacts throughout the value chain – all the steps of manufacturing and distribution between the forest and retail.
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Certified wood can be more expensive or have less availability compared to “business as usual” wood. This differs greatly between schemes, by region, species, product, etc.
Verification
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Third party verification is inherent to certified wood (i.e. FSC, PEFC), making this pathway the easiest to verify. Second and first party verification may apply if equivalency to procurement standards must be assured for products without certification. (See Verification Matrix)
How to Evaluate?
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Level One: All wood products sourced for a given project are certified under any national or international certification system with legal assurances and traceability information. Invoices for certified products containing valid certification claims and CoC certification codes are filed with project documentation.
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Level Two: All wood products sourced for a given project are certified by a single scheme chosen by wood specifiers. The chosen certification program should provide legal assurances, traceability information, and any additional information relating to socio-economic impact, forestry management plans, third-party certification inspections, etc. Invoices for certified products containing valid certification claims and CoC certification codes are filed with project documentation.
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Level Three: Certification schemes have been researched and a scheme is selected which includes forest management standards that align with the specifier’s sustainability goals and the project Wood Sourcing Strategy. Invoices for certified products containing valid certification claims and CoC certification codes are filed with project documentation.
Actions to Include Pathway ​
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Define project requirements using the Wood Needs Report template.
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Briefly explore FC options (see Background Document for more information).
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Create specification and/or request for proposal (RFP) requirements for certified wood or FC documentation.
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Work with design teams to incorporate specific alignments between FC products and the project potential and requirements. Match specific wood components (framing, interior elements) to the highest level of sustainability benefits that FC can offer.
Use in Policy Making​
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Establish a requirement or preference towards certified wood in public procurement that delivers social and environmental sustainability benefits.
