A strange and increasingly frustrating conflict is emerging within the FSC community in the US. It concerns the implementation of some new “social elements” in the latest version of the Chain of Custody standard (FSC-STD-40-004 v.2-1). This latest version of the standard became effective a year ago, but was make mandatory as of 1 October 2012. It includes a new section 1.5 entitled “Commitment to FSC Values”. It looks like this:
1.5 Commitment to FSC Values
1.5.1 The organization shall demonstrate its commitment to comply with the Values of FSC as defined in the “Policy for the Association of Organizations with FSC” (FSC-POL-01-004, initially approved in July 2009).
1.5.2 The organization shall declare not be directly or indirectly involved in the following activities:
a) Illegal logging or the trade in illegal wood or forest products;
b) Violation of traditional and human rights in forestry operations;
c) Destruction of high conservation values in forestry operations;
d) Significant conversion of forests to plantations or non-forest use;
e) Introduction of genetically modified organisms in forestry operations;
f) Violation of any of the ILO Core Conventions, as defined in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 1998.
To guide implementation of this new section, FSC also issued a new procedure (FSC-PRO-20-001 v.1-0). Annex B of this procedure provides a required “self-declaration” statement which – as of this week – is required to be signed by all FSC-certified companies.
The problem:
For a number complicated reasons (USCIB summery – US law) this creates an unacceptable legal situation for many US companies. The list includes some very prominent and recognizable names and key supporters of FSC-US. An informal group of these companies have been lobbying FSC for at least a year – assisted by FSC-US staff – with little or no progress. The conversation seems to have become a bit more focused recently (my 10/2/12 blogpost), but the parties still don’t seem to understand one another. FSC European staffers seem genuinely puzzled that a problem even exists.
Will FSC self-destruct over such a small matter? I doubt it. But things could get interesting along the way. Stay tuned…
I appreciate your inhtisgs, Tyler! My intent was simply to eradicate the idea that paper is the root to our sustainability issues and that by doing away with its usage is the true answer. All modes of communication have a negative effect on the environment. I agree that each of them has its time and place and definitely that we need to use less across the board. I am all for a technology company that wants to harvest its heat as an alternative energy source bring it! As a side note, I typically only push FSC and simply threw the SFI mention in there because my company while we have never actually printed an SFI job, we are certified. I favor FSC not only because I am most knowledgable after performing our yearly audits, I am also impressed with the Rainforest Alliance and its commitment to biodiversity conservation. I definitely appreciate your insight on SFI and will definitely be doing some more reading up on that! I apologize for my naivety. Thank you again for your feedback, Tyler!
My first reaction was great info, I’m glad you took the time to recserah this data. It’s good to know the status of our forests in relation to the various certification systems. Then, of course, I have to look at my own state, Maryland. And Maryland is not listed at all. Many don’t think of Maryland as a timber producing state and by comparison to Pennsylvania or West Virginia they would be correct. But we do have over 200,000 acres of our State Forest system certified by both FSC and SFI since 2003. My work is to maintain our certification program for the MD DNR Forest Service, so this is important to me. So, was the plan for your study to include all states with certified forest lands or did you simply sample some of the states? Without the Maryland data it does skew the Northeast figures. If you have plans to update your information, I would be glad to provide you with our state data.Again, great work, just wish you had included us in the data.