The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Program is in the first stages of a major revision of their standards.  You can read about the process here.  The first public consultation period will be ending on August 6, so  it is important that anyone with suggestions (that includes me) get their inputs to the SFI staff soon. SFI has taken a lot of heat lately; mostly from environmental campaign groups with a strict "FSC-only" agenda.  Their arguments have been picked up in mainstream press as...

Almost a year ago, the FSC Policy and Standards unit (PSU) released a new procedures document  (FSC-PRO-20-001 v.1-0) which was intended to guide the implementation of one of the new requirements inserted into the latest version of its principal Chain of Custody (CoC) standard (FSC-STD-40-004 v.2-1).  This should have been a simple and straightforward process, but - as they so often do - FSC managed to over-complicate the situation.  They included in their procedure a rather poorly-worded, but...

I was surprised and interested to discover press announcment  from PEFC this morning.  What caught my eye immediately was the fact that the announcement is issued jointly by PEFC and FSC.  Both sites provide links to a one-page statement.  Both organization's logos appear in the header, and the signatures of both executive directors appear at the bottom.  When is the last time that this has happened?  I don't remember. The subject of the statement is a new proposal being floated by ISO, the...

I have been conscious lately that my comments in this blog have tended to be critical of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) but have not had to say about our other prominent program "green" certification program, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).  This has troubled my sense of fair play and seemed to conflict with a sincere intention to be balanced and strictly non-partisan in this space.  The truth, of course, is that FSC has given me a lot to write about this year.  But that may...

There is an interesting and (to me) surprising news story circulating through the business press this week.  It concerns the merger of two, very large paper merchants:  Unisource and XpedX.  Here are a few examples of what's being written (Bizjournals, Bloomberg, RISI). To folks not familiar with the paper business, the existence and importance of paper merchants is something of a mystery.  To a surprising extent, paper manufacturers do not sell their products directly to companies that use...

The regular FSC International News & Views newsletter for April includes an interesting and unusual article.  It's found down at the bottom under the sub-heading Stakeholder News:  ASI suspends SGS Hong Kong.  There is a link to the full article. ASI (or Accreditation Services International) is the nominally-independent accreditation arm of the FSC organization.  Accreditation provides the rules of conduct and oversight for Certification Bodies - essentially the rules of the road for...