Background
The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) developed the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program to document the commitment of member companies in the United States to sustainable forestry. The SFI Program was formally adopted by the AF&PA Board of Directors in 1994. In 2000, the Sustainable Forestry Board (SFB) was established to oversee the SFI standards development and certification processes. Also in 2000, the SFI program was extended to Canada, allowing forestry operations in that country the opportunity to be certified to the SFI standard. Although AF&PA member companies are still required to adhere to the SFI program, certification is open to all SFI Program participants.
Governance
The SFB manages the standards, verification procedures, dispute resolution and program quality control. In 2001, the SFB become an independent non-profit entity with full management authority. The SFB is a 15- person board that includes natural resource professionals, conservation organizations and forestry industry professionals. The External Review Panel is an independent 18-person group that serves in an advisory capacity to AF&PA and the SFB, and is responsible for ensuring the program’s technical and scientific accuracy.
AF&PA remains responsible for administering the SFI program, including communications, licensing, labeling and reporting.
Standards
The SFI Standard (SFIS) is developed in concert by the Resources Committee, technical sub-committees and working groups. The Resources Committee falls under the jurisdiction of the SFB. This committee is composed of environmental groups, SFI participants, academics, government agency personnel and forestry professionals. Members of the SFB typically appoint another individual within their organization to serve on the Resources Committee. Proposed standards are subject to public comment periods and receive SFB approval before taking effect.
The SFI Program has a new standard valid from 2005 through 2009. The SFIS spells out the requirements of compliance with the program. The SFIS is based on nine principles that address economic, environmental, cultural and legal issues, in addition to a commitment to continuously improve sustainable forest management. The SFIS contains 13 objectives covering sustainable forest management, procurement of wood and fiber, public reporting, continuous improvement and mitigating illegal logging.
Accreditation
The SFI program requires auditors to be accredited by the American National Standards Institute or the Standards Council of Canada on a joint program for EMS auditors administered by two U.S.-based agencies, Registrar Accreditation Board and the American National Standards Institute. The Registrar Accreditation Board is a non-profit focusing on the accreditation and certification processes and the American National Standards Institute is a non-profit organization charged with administering and coordinating the voluntary standards system. Additionally, SFI auditors operating in Canada are required to be accredited by the Canadian Environmental Auditing Association. This organization is certified by the Standards Council of Canada to evaluate and certify EMS auditors.
Certification organizations are assessed annually and required to be re-accredited every three years. A review team from one of the accreditation bodies conducts an office audit and reviews an environmental management system (ISO 14001) audit conducted by the certification organization. The accreditation review team's work is then submitted to a separate unit within the accreditation body for the final decision on accreditation for the certification organization.
Certification
Verification of conformance with SFI program requirements may be first, second or third party audited. However, for certification, third party auditing is required to ensure conformance with the SFIS. Recertification must occur at least every five years. Program participants may choose a full recertification or surveillance audits periodically that review each objective, performance measure and indicator at least once during a five-year period.
Product Tracking and Labeling
The SFI program uses a sustainable wood procurement auditing system for tracking certified products through the supply chain. The procurement system assists landowners in improving their capacity to practice sustainable forestry on all types of lands.
The SFI® wood procurement system certification requires participant companies to have an auditable system in place to characterize the forest practices on the lands where they procure raw material. This is done by auditing the on-the-ground practices for a portion of the wood that is supplied to their processing facilities. The program emphasizes reforestation, the utilization of best management practices and enhancing the professional capacity of wood production operations. The SFI labeling program also recognizes landowners certified under the American Tree Farm System who supply raw materials to SFI program participants as a source equivalent to forests certified under the SFI program.
The SFI program includes one label for primary producers and four others for secondary producers in addition to labels for 100 percent content from a SFI certified forest, and mixed content label with the percentage of content from an SFI certified forest.A primary producer is a facility that produces forest products and sources at least 50 percent of its raw materials by weight from primary sources—round wood, wood chips and wood residues. Secondary producers are facilities that produce forest products and purchase more than 50 percent of their raw material from secondary sources such as semi-finished solid wood, paper, market pulp, recovered wood fiber, or composite products. The four secondary producer labels are for manufacturers, publishers and retailers.
In order to qualify for the label, a primary producer must meet specific criteria, including:
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100 percent of its raw material is sourced from third party-certified forests (SFI or ATFS) and/or originates from SFI-certified procurement systems; |
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No more than two-thirds of the raw material by weight is from other credible sources; and, |
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Inclusion of non-acceptable sources will preclude approval for label use.
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In order to qualify to use an SFI label, a secondary producer must meet specific criteria, including:
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At least two-thirds of the wood or fiber by weight is from a SFI-certified forest, ATFS-certified forest, or a source that operates an SFI-certified procurement system; |
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No more than one-third of the wood or fiber is from neutral sources, which are defined as recovered fiber, recovered paper and wood byproducts of a manufacturing process; and, |
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If inclusion of non-acceptable sources will preclude approval for label use |
SFI program participants who have successfully completed independent third party certification to the SFIS may also choose to have their facilities chain of custody certified and could then qualify to use labels demonstrating the percent of the fiber used in producing a product lines(s) that comes from forests independently certified to the SFIS. The system allows for three different product tracking approaches:
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A physical separation model that separately stores and uses certified material
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A batch model that uses only certified materials on a temporal basis—e.g. production shift
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A mixed model that addresses the simultaneous use of certified and non-certified materials
SFI on the Ground
Sustainable Forestry Board
1800 N. Kent St., Suite 1120
Arlington, VA 22209 USA
Phone: 703-797-2506
Fax: 703-525-4610
Web sites: www.aboutsfb.org, www.aboutsfi.org
