A simple case study:  ‘Suburban Printing Company’ About a month ago, MixedWood was contacted by one of our clients - a small, commercial printer, located in the northeastern US.  We had assisted this company with a new Chain of Custody (CoC) certification only last year.  With our help, they had completed their dual FSC/SFI certification in the spring of 2023.  For us, the project could not have been easier.  A well-organized and collaborative client.  A simple, transfer-based system.  Quick...

As the global wood product marketplace has begun to digest the implication of the new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the folks responsible for its implementation are clearly getting a lot of direct questions.  They decided to release some initial guidance in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document.  It is worth reading – both for what it tells us and for what it does not. Georeferencing Our first article on this subject focuses on georeferencing as the key item that seems...

We are returning to the topic of our last article.  A subject we would like to forget about, but it is just too important to ignore.  We are referring to the Advice Notes that were recently published by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – extending their Core Labor Requirements (CLR) to include Outsourcing for CoC companies. FSC has a long history of inventing new requirements, out of thin air, and dropping them unannounced on its community of Certificate Holders (CH).  Readers of this blog...

A quick glance at the commentary on this site will reveal that our most common topic, by far, has been calling attention to dumb things that the FSC does.  We take no pleasure in pointing this out.  The Forest Stewardship Council is a fine organization dedicated to a good and positive mission:  the conservation and protection of the world’s forests.  MixedWood is proud to part of this mission.  As an organization, however, FSC has had a very hard time remembering this mission.  It continues to...

Our thanks to colleagues who provided feedback and reaction to our recent article on the pending EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).  For those following this subject and (like us) trying to understand it better, here are a couple of useful links for additional reading and study: The Certification Body (CB) "Preferred by Nature" have a very comprehensive summary on their website.  As an organization, PbN seem curiously pleased at the prospect of EUDR implementation, but their detailed outlines...

When we wrote our article last summer about Due Diligence Systems (DDS), it seemed as if the situation for wood product DDS had begun to settle down.  That was less than a year ago, but it is already clear that we were wrong. In the past, it has typically been program changes from the FSC or PEFC that confuse and complicate things.  In this case, however, it is the European Union (EU) government that threatens to disrupt global markets for wood products.  Late last year an agreement was...