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November 09, 2000
Forest Stewardship Council Faces Challenge from Forest Industry
Industry-supported Sustainable Forest Initiative asserts its own "green" forestry practices.
SocialFunds.com --
The certification of environmentally friendly forestry practices holds promise for investors and
consumers who want to select the most responsible forest product companies. But two competing
certification programs bearing equally credible names, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the
Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), leave many social investors confused about which one to rely
on.
 Willamette Industries, a forest products
company owning more than 1.7 million acres of forestland in the U.S., recently announced that all
of their forests were independently certified to comply with SFI standards. The verification was
performed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a leading auditing and accounting firm, based on the SFI's
standards and practices purported to ensure that forests are managed in a sustainable and
responsible manner.
"This is a significant milestone for our company," says Eddie
McMillan, Willamette Executive Vice President. "It is a clear statement to our customers: When you
buy Willamette products, you buy from a company who cares about the future of forest resources and
who is willing to submit their forest management practices to a rigorous third-party audit process
to verify our sound, environmentally responsible approach to the production of wood fiber."
Boise Cascade, another leading forest product company with 2.3 million acres of timberland in
the U.S., also recently announced the independent SFI certification of 200,000 acres of their
forests in Idaho. But while third-party SFI certification certainly indicates a degree of
environmental responsibility, the history of this program suggests that it is less than objective.
The original forest certification program, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), was
founded in 1993 by an international group of timber users, traders, and environmental and
human-rights organizations in favor of forest conservation. It currently certifies over 45 million
acres around the world. The SFI, on the other hand, grew out of a public relations initiative in
1995 by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) whose members, like Boise and Willamette,
own 90 percent of the industrial forest land in the U.S.
"The SFI was hurriedly thrown
together a few years ago as a feel-good, do-little industry response to the FSC," said Conrad
MacKerron, director of the Corporate Accountability Program at the As You Sow Foundation, a San
Francisco-based shareholder advocacy group. "While the FSC has annually filed audits by accredited
personnel, SFI is self-policed and self-reported."
As an arm of the AF&PA, the Sustainable
Forest Initiative is funded by the industry that it monitors. In fact, the SFI allows companies to
monitor themselves, implementing forestry policies based on public relations needs rather than
environmental ones, such as "minimizing the visual impact of harvesting." While independent
certification represents a more rigorous approach, the standards are still made by the industry.
The FSC, on the other hand, is a non-profit organization that accepts no funding from the
forestry industry, and has identified 56 criteria for evaluating forestry practices to promote
ecological soundness. For instance FSC standards curtail the use of herbicides, while SFI's do not.
While FSC significantly constrains large-scale clearcutting, SFI allows it as standard practice.
Also, the FSC mission includes social goals unrecognized by SFI, such as creating sustainable
employment and recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples.
While the forest products
industry remains a stronghold for the industry-initiated SFI, and has 10 times more U.S. acreage
under certification than FSC, consumer and investor advocacy have caused big retailers to tilt
toward the FSC. Home Depot announced it would phase-in FSC-certified products last year after an
aggressive environmental activism and shareholder campaign, and Lowe's, the second largest
home-improvement retailer in the U.S. followed suit last August.
Both the SFI and the FSC
claim to promote environmentally sound forestry practices, making the choice for discerning
investors and consumers a difficult one. But with continued pressure from the retail end in the
U.S. and Europe, the forest product industry may have little choice but to upgrade to the more
rigorous standards called for by the FSC.
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SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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