The Wonderful World of Forest Certification

ABOUT A year ago, one of my clients came to me and said he wanted me to help his company get FSC certified. My response was F-S—WHAT? That was the start of a journey that has led me to become somewhat of a specialist in the relatively new world—for printers at least—of sourcing from well-managed forests.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, like many, I knew about recycled content, federal guidelines for its use, and a few other environmental paper-related preferences such as acid-free options. But I never gave much thought to virgin fiber or the forests from which they were sourced.

As you probably know, EPA guidelines for recycled paper state that for coated stock, the minimum is 10 percent post-consumer-waste (PCW, also termed post-consumer-recycled-fiber or PCRF) and 30 percent for uncoated. All federally-funded projects are mandated to adhere to these minimum standards, and many in-plants, both in the public and private sectors, have adopted them as well.

The natural question has now come up: if only 10 or 30 percent of what’s called “recycled paper” is actually made from recycled material, then where does the rest of the fiber come from? In most cases, the answer is from virgin timber and the forests in which they’re grown.

Here are a few facts to consider:

• The available supply of recycled fiber, both pre- and post-consumer waste, equals only about 35 percent of the total demand for paper production in the U.S. More than half of this goes into corrugated paperboard/boxes.

• Virgin fiber for paper represents 25 percent of all timber harvested in North America. (Worldwide about 40 percent of all commercially traded timber is used for paper production.)

• The U.S. produces more than 90 million tons of paper annually. My brain always converts tons into pallets of paper as a benchmark. That’s equivalent to more than 50 square miles of pallets.

Throw this all together, and you can see that approximately 85 percent of the paper used for printing in America still comes from virgin fiber. I find it interesting that it’s taken so long for us to get a handle on this. We talk about recycled paper as if we were saving the world by using it, but with figures like this, it makes me wonder.

Where Does the Virgin Fiber Come From?

That very question was asked by the environmental group ForestEthics. In 2005, Aaron Sanger, a lawyer representing that organization, placed the first of a series of full-page ads targeted against Victoria’s Secret, its parent company Limited Brands, and International Paper, the supplier from which their catalogs were sourced.

The first full-page ad, taken out in the New York Times, showed a lingerie-clad model holding a chain saw with the headline “Victoria’s ‘Dirty’ Secret,” and then went on to state how the catalogs produced by the company were sourced from endangered boreal forests of Canada.

It didn’t take long for Limited Brands and IP, along with many other major corporate catalog publishers and paper manufacturers, to see the handwriting on the wall. It was time to make a fundamental change in how they did business.

This wasn’t anything new. There were already riders of the “Green Wave,” early adopters of what I like to call the “new” CSR—Corporate Social Responsibility.

The “new” CSR is based on three criteria (the Triple Bottom Line): the ecological, social and local economic benefits of any product or service they provide. Companies are no longer making decisions based solely on economic benefits to them. They now look deeper and in more directions than just business-forward. Leading companies are now viewing their decisions through an “environmental lens,” with a focus on the Triple Bottom Line.

Meanwhile, Back in the Forest…

Back in 1993, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was formed as a means to address the destruction of the world’s forest resources and to promote sustainable forest practices. Prior to that time, although the concern existed, there was no way to address the issue credibly under a transparent system in an organized fashion.

The FSC set stringent standards for forestry based on three criteria: environmental, social and economic (sound familiar?). From a product standpoint, it started first with boards and lumber, but it didn’t take long for the paper industry to see the benefits of these standards as well.

Many popular brands of paper in general use today—recycled, virgin and mixed, in both commodity and finer grades—are FSC-certified. This, however, has not always been the case.

It wasn’t until 2000 that Domtar became the first U.S. paper manufacturer to receive FSC forest management certification for its lands in upstate New York. This was followed by Mohawk Fine Papers, which in 2002 received chain-of-custody certification for the manufacture of FSC-certified paper.

That same year, Ris Paper became the first merchant with chain-of-custody certification. Then Finch Paper received forest management certification for its forestland and chain-of-custody certification for its manufacturing facilities, thus becoming the first company to wholly manufacture paper in the U.S. from the forest to the final product.

Originally, the FSC used what is called the threshold system for certifying paper. Only fiber sourced from an FSC-certified forest, segregated and tracked through production of a product, could be labeled as FSC-certified. This among other factors kept supply low, though demand was rising.

In 2005, the credit system was introduced, allowing manufacturers to buy and “bank” the volume of certified fiber purchased, and subsequently produce paper more on an on-demand basis, although the threshold system is still in use.

Today, many more forest growers, mills and merchants are becoming certified, and increasingly more long-standing brands are bearing the FSC label due, at least in part, to the adoption of the credit system, coupled with the rapidly rising demand.

Other Forest Certification Schemes

The FSC isn’t the only player in the game. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) was started in 1994, in part as a response to pressures from NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and to combat the stringent Triple Bottom Line standards enforced by the FSC. SFI was formed by members of the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), but soon came under fire for being the fox guarding the henhouse. Over the years, SFI separated itself from the AF&PA and has become more of a transparent organization.

Unlike FSC, SFI concentrates mostly on forest management practices, without concentration on indigenous people’s or forest community’s rights, although any schema that protects endangered forests is better than no management system at all.

Because of SFI’s concentration in just this one area, corporate America hasn’t adopted SFI as it does FSC, due to the lack of socio-economic components. In addition, SFI allows practices forbidden by the FSC, such as genetic modification, just one of several forest management applications where there are differing viewpoints about effect on the environment.

Along with SFI are similar organizations such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and a host of other certifications, many of them based in Europe, that have united under an umbrella group known as the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). As of 2007, SFI and CSA are included under the PEFC umbrella, so it will be likely that more papers will become available that are PEFC-certified.

And this Means What to Me?

With so much dynamic “green” activity happening all around the printing industry, it’s easy to see why there can be quite a bit of confusion. Do I get certified at all? Do I choose FSC, SFI or both? And what about PEFC? Will that be a factor to deal with in the future?

The answer lies with your stakeholders. Many organizations have formed new divisions, offices or working groups within the highest levels of the organization. The Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) phenomenon has been a quickly developing trend in both the public and private sectors over the past few years. In some cases, these new corporate or administrative offices have been given unlimited power to redirect decision-making processes to include the Triple Bottom Line.

Sustainability mandates are gaining popularity, and when it comes to paper and printing, official directives to only source projects that include paper made from certified well-managed forests are being adopted with increasing frequency. In order to market their adoption of CSR practices, printed products are being required to be “labeled” as coming from certified forests.

FSC centers on the Triple Bottom Line. Because of this symbiotic, functional relationship, organizations like Dell, Nike, IKEA, Williams-Sonoma, Random House, ConocoPhillips and Stanford University endorse the FSC standard, not SFI.

In future articles, we will explore the structure of what forest certification means to printers and what it takes to get FSC-certified. We’ll examine what chain-of-custody is all about, we’ll look at labeling requirements and product groups, and we’ll also talk with some in-plants that have obtained their certification.

Until then, if you get to the point where your parent organization—and maybe even your new CSO—is talking to you about FSC, or if you want to start the conversation with them, please give me a call. IPG

Vic Nathan Barkin has more than 30 years of experience in the printing industry and currently owns a consulting practice specializing in digital printing business development, workflow and technology implementation geared to the in-plant community. He also offers expertise in “Green Printing” practices, FSC certification facilitation and is an FSC auditor for Smartwood. Barkin is a past president of the IPMA’s Arizona chapter, and has been a presenter at ACUP, SUPDMC, Big 12, NGPA and PIAMS Green Industry Showcase. He currently serves as vice president for the Mountain States Printing Education Foundation and is a consultant for Vista Research, a division of Standard and Poore’s. Barkin was the manager of Northern Arizona University’s Printing Services department for 12 years and recently served as solutions sales manager, digital printing, for Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group. He can be reached at (928) 853-1547 or:

vicbarkin@netscape.net