Growing support for good forest care

Date: 22/04/1999

By Renée Cordes

IT IS a sign that environmental concerns are entering the business mainstream when new market-led standards are created to give the 'green' stamp of approval to products.

Consumers, especially those in Germany and the Nordic countries, are increasingly insistent that the goods they buy should not degrade the environment.

At the same time, the European Commission is keeping a watchful eye on certification schemes to ensure that they do not become a market barrier by another name.

For this reason, the Commission has applauded efforts by Europe's small forest owners to set up a certification scheme to rival that of the international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). "It is important to guard against building a monopoly in forest-management certification," said a Commission agricultural expert.

Acting Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler sent a representative to a meeting in Würzburg this week which was organised by the budding Pan-European Certification (PEC) network, formed by forest owners in 17 countries.

Organisers of the alternative scheme say small forest owners will be able to band together and file for group certification, which is not allowed under the older programme and is therefore prohibitive on cost grounds. Non-governmental organisations estimate that these filings can cost up to 1.50 euro per hectare.

British food retailer Sainsbury's, Swedish papermaker and packager AssiDomän and furnishings giant Ikea all get their wood from forests which comply with strict management tests. If it passes inspection, the forest supplying the wood is certified by the FSC, an international body set up in 1993 by forest product companies, certification firms, foresters and others concerned to keep the world's forests intact.

Independent auditors examine whether a forest is well-managed according to several criteria such as the promotion of biodiversity and tree quality.

In turn, Sainsbury's and others can market their products with the FSC stamp of approval (a tick-sign joined to a tree) which, they claim, is increasingly recognised by environmentally aware customers.

AssiDomän, which owns 3.3 million hectares of forest, says it has been able to boost market share and differentiate its products from those of its competitors. Even more importantly, the company views certification as a way to ensure access to a long-term supply of high-quality timber.

" There are two main reasons we joined FSC," says AssiDomän spokeswoman Katarina Sivander. "As a forest owner dependent on the woods as a raw material, you are interested in treating this asset in a proper way. The other reason is that FSC is an access to the market, a licence for business." The company uses FSC to supplement other environmental auditing systems.

However, small forest owners claim that the FSC system has failed them. That is why many of them have joined forces to create a competing certification system tailor-made for smaller forests. Eventually, the PEC may even consider applying for Union cash to promote the new trade mark.

" The EU has been kept informed about the preparations, but so far there is no decision on whether the scheme should be EU-supported," says Birgit Sanness of the Norwegian Forest Owners' Federation.

" It is a pan-European framework, but we will also make sure we do not create any barriers to trade and will open up the process to non-European countries."

Ultimately, this should be the aim of all environmental approval schemes, says Stefan Leiner, a forestry expert with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), which helped to establish the FSC. He believes a global certification scheme would be more productive. "Creating a European framework could even be counter-productive by increasing the consumption of European wood products," he argues.

That may sound attractive to the wood, paper and pulp industry, which has been underperforming for the past ten years.

In many cases, companies have barely covered their capital costs and generated little in the way of income to plough back into the business.

Experts argue that the management of forests and harvesting of trees can be highly profitable, but stress that this is only possible if forest owners can reverse or at least halt forest degradation, which has resulted in the loss of about half the earth's original forested area.

A less-understood but no less important problem is declining forest quality - a phenomenon which both the PEC and the FSC argue can be reversed to some extent by fostering certification schemes. These measure forest quality by their 'authenticity', assessing how closely the wooded area resembles a truly natural forest; and 'health', which records whether the forest is able to cope with pollution and climate change.

More than 10 million hectares of forest world-wide had been certified under the FSC scheme by last September, six months ahead of the target date declared by the WWF.

The older scheme lays down ten criteria for forest management which assess a broad range of scientific, environmental, economic and even social standards. It also tracks wood and paper from the forest to the mill and finally to customers - a process known in the jargon as the 'chain of custody'.

Even the FSC's supporters contend that it is difficult to track whether all the materials in a product in the 'chain of custody' come from well-managed forests. To answer this criticism, German publishing company Axel Springer Verlag and mail-order firm Otto Versand recently established a pilot project to investigate the reliability of the FSC's product tracking.

" It is difficult at first to get recognition when you are launching a new product or a new trade mark," says Chris Elliott, director of the WWF's Forests for Life Campaign. "But gradually, the FSC label is becoming recognised."

Some products, such as toilet paper sold by Sainsbury's, feature the symbol and logo. However, other retailers like Ikea, which sell FSC-certified wood, have decided to refrain from marketing products with the label to avoid having to explain why some items carry it and others do not.

Paper companies say certification ensures a good relationship between supplier and producer. "In most countries, the paper industry does not own forests so, to have an assurance of good raw materials, you have to look for good relations with your suppliers," says Wolf Schopfhauser, a forestry expert at the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI).

Owners of small forests agree with the principle, but argue that the FSC scheme is too expensive because it does not allow them to carry out group certification.

" The new certification now in preparation will become a viable alternative," says Sanness. "Then it will be up to the market to decide whether you actually need a label."

The WWF's Leiner agrees with this. "Certification is purely a market-driven instrument," he says.

Major feature.