Forest Certification at Risk

A risky experiment is about to unfold in the forest certification community. As explained in SCS Launching Its Own Forest Certification System, Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) is planning to launch a forest certification scheme (Cross and Globe) that will compete with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. While it’s far too early to predict how this will turn out, I’m worried.

On the positive side is the possibility that Cross and Globe will finally bring mainstream forest products companies to the table and engender real environmental improvement to their forest operations—the ultimate goal of FSC’s environmental stakeholders. If that happens and the industry embraces Cross and Globe, the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) may have to bring its own Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) into line with those standards or risk being left behind.

Just as likely, though, is the possibility that this new certification scheme will result in highly damaging confusion within the environmental community as to what type of certification is really green. Cross and Globe could fail to capture the big players but cripple FSC-based certification in the process of trying. In this case, with SFI gaining recognition in the marketplace, AF&PA and its member companies could get just what they want: not having to significantly change their forest practices.

While I’ll keep an open mind as I watch these high-stakes developments unfold, I’m saddened that the for-profit SCS and the nonprofit FSC apparently could not stick together in building up FSC to the point where the mainstream industry players would have to get on board.

– Alex Wilson