Board Makers Embrace Certification.

SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY management, while not a new concept to the wood products industry, has taken an interesting turn in recent years with the idea of "green" certification. New questions abound, including:

* How should sustainable forestry management be defined?

* What standards should be established to meet sustainable forestry management goals?

* Who should be responsible for policing those standards?

Certification of wood products is even more of a gray area, bringing such variables as "percentage-based claims" and "chain-of-custody" into the equation.

Even with such questions still up in the air, many leading North American forest companies, including most manufacturers of particleboard and medium density fiberboard, have prophesied the coming market situation and as a result, have felt compelled to embark on costly certification programs.

While spokespeople for most of the companies contacted for this article agree that green certification both of timberlands and wood products is a given for the years ahead, they remain uncertain whether obtaining certification will someday yield bigger profits for their products.

Nevertheless, all believe in the ideal and see certification as an opportunity to sing their company's environmental commitment.

Flexibility on the Ground

As it relates to the forest side of the coin, the gap between the two major certification schemes developed by the Forest Stewardship Council and the American Forest & Paper Assn. remains large enough to make a difference to major board manufacturers. Forest Stewardship Council certification, according to many in the industry, is too rigid and allows little in the way of on-the-ground decision making.

Because of his perceived inflexibility of the FSC program, Eddie McMillan, vice president of Willamette Industries Inc.'s Building Material Group, says, the company has sought forest certification through the AF&PA's Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

"There are certain things that FSC certification requires that we just don't agree are good management practices, such as the banning of clearcutting on Douglas fir forests," McMillan says. "You can't manage a Doug-fir forest commercially and not have some clearcutting."

McMillan adds that the same could be said of almost any pioneer species -- trees requiring full sunlight for successful establishment -- that are grown for fiber.

FSC's restrictions on the use of chemicals is another point of contention from McMillan's perspective. He says limited herbicidal treatments and occasional fertilizer applications are mainstays of Willamette's operations. If management tools such as clearcutting and chemicals were taken away, productivity would be slowed to the point that the many private forest harvesting and replanting operations would cease.

By and large, corporate entities view flexibility as a major deciding factor in their choice of a forest certification system. The perceived need for adaptability has resulted in some companies seeking multiple programs. Weyerhaeuser, which helped develop the country's first tree farm in 1941, has set its sights on having all of its forestlands and manufacturing units certifiable to the ISO 14001 standard by 2005 whether or not it pursues the actual third-party audit via this system. Weyerhaeuser furthermore plans to incorporate its U.S. timberlands into the SFI standard, but the manufacturing facilities will remain within the ISO.

Weyerhaeuser also envisions having all of its Canadian timberlands third-party certified to ISO 14001 by 2002 and to the Canadian Standards Assn. (CSA) system -- which involves a public consultation process to set performance standards -- by 2003.

So far, according to Kathy Budinick, Weyerhaeuser's environmental communications manager, approximately 58 percent of the forestland that Weyerhaeuser owns or manages in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand has been certified to ISO, CSA and/or SFI standard. This amounts to about 22 million certified acres worldwide.

Such a juggling of systems permits a wider array of management options, especially for those industry sectors with forestry operations spread across diverse geographical regions. In other words, "one size fits all" does not necessarily apply to timberlands.

"[ISO 14001] is really where we're looking to ensure that we have our own processes in place so we can effectively manage the environmental aspects of our activities," Budinick says. "It's more about getting our own processes in place, while adding the SF1 on top identifies the outcomes that we will strive to achieve."

Temple Inland is also relying on an ISO/SFI combination, citing a high regard for the ISO requirement that all organizations identify those activities that may potentially impact the environment and then ensure that the proper operational controls are in place to minimize these impacts. Through ISO 14001, employees are also required to have specialized environmental training specific to their job functions.

Bill Goodrum, Temple Inland's manager of forest practices and principles, says, "In May this year, the company's 2.2 million acres of forestland were certified as compliant with 150 14001 and the SFI program." He adds, "Probably the most important requirements of the ISO 14001 standard are the elements that hold management responsible for ensuring that the resources are available to implement the system, as well as tracking of continuous improvement. The specific practices, performance measures and indicators of the SFI standard integrate well into the ISO framework and together provide a very high standard of environmental performance and sustainable forest management. The fact that these two standards do a good job of complementing each other was a factor in our forest certification selection process."

Few, if any, board manufacturers rely solely on their own lands to meet their wood needs, and in order to promote consistency -- as well as to lay the groundwork for chain-of-custody concerns in product certification -- it becomes necessary to carry sustainable forestry concepts to timberland owners of all types and locations.

As a result, Georgia-Pacific has initiated its Forest Management Assistance Program through which more than 1,700 private woodland owners are offered technical assistance on sustainable forestry matters, including timber growth, soil and water conservation and wildlife habitat improvement.

McMillan also cites a strong outreach to non-industrial private forest owners as an important key to Willamette's preference for SFI. "If you look at the forest products industry as a whole," he explains, "all of us buy substantial portions of our fiber from non-industrial landowners. It's very important that not only we manage the forests correctly, but they do so as well. SFI has a very strong program to reach out to those people as part of their certification requirements."

Not unlike Georgia-Pacific's Forest MAP program, Willamette has a process in place whereby landowners from whom the company procures wood and fiber have access to detailed information on Best Management Practices, reforestation, the wise and prudent use of chemicals and fertilizers and state and local laws. Furthermore, a greater number of industry representatives are taking a more proactive role in bringing the sustainable forestry concept to the general public through school programs, Forestry Field Days and other means.

Tagging the Products

Given the inherent challenges of tracking wood from the forest to the retailer's shelf, it's little wonder that many manufacturers remain iffy on the merits of product certification. Nevertheless, a great many manufacturers have sought Scientific Certification System's (SCS) Green Cross product label, including Georgia-Pacific, Collins Products, Louisiana-Pacific, Evanite Fiber Corp., SierraPine and Plum Creek. Temple Inland and Flakeboard are two examples of panel manufacturers achieving use of FSC certification product label. Representatives of these corporations cite environmental validation to consumers as one of the primary reasons for taking this step.

Others remain undecided. "It's on our radar screen," says Budinick. "It's being talked about as a direction that we may go down, but there's certainly some challenges around that area."

According to McMillan, Willamette -- which has its particleboard and MDF products certified by the SCS Green Cross program -- is prepared to travel the necessary route as product certification continues to evolve. Beyond the company's present level of compliance with SCS, SFI product labeling will be considered once it is developed.

One of the tallest hurdles to a wider acceptance of wood product certification remains the economics behind the concept. Approximately three years ago, anticipating that certification will eventually become necessary to sustain its place in the marketplace, SierraPine decided to take that route. According to Jeff Lundegard, SierraPine's director of sales for the Western Region, SCS was the system of choice because it was the primary name of independent, third-party certifiers.

SierraPine gained certification of its then three board plants. When the company bought Weyerhaeuser's composite panel division, those plants were certified as well.

"I can't tell you honestly that it's been worth it," says Lundegard. "I think it's the right thing to do, but have we gotten the order because we had the Green Cross or did we lose an order because we didn't? I can't tell you that that's been the case either way."

Lundegard adds that he would like to see major retailers play a role in making certification more cost-effective for companies such as particleboard and MDF manufacturers whose end products are often unrecognizable to the consumer. "The level of sophistication we need from the Home Depots of the world in the long run," he says, "is starting to get those SCS logos and promoting those on their finished products -- on their bathroom vanities, on their kitchen cabinets."

Kelly Shotbolt, president/CEO of Flakeboard Company and 2001 chairman of the Composite Panel Association, explains another development that may be afoot in retailer endorsement of systems: a close look at environmentally preferable products (EPP), which steps back and takes in a bigger picture. EPP, says Shotbolt, considers sawdust, shavings, thinnings, treetops -- several forest management and certification variables -- thereby allowing each panel manufacturers the opportunity to better manage its own set of circumstances in the most environmentally responsible way.

Consumer Commitment

Even though G-P's Baker mentions the corporation's support of the SFI forest certification system, she emphasizes that the bottom line is endorsing sustainable forestry and not a specific program. The fact that little data exists to indicate consumer preference for certified wood products does not necessarily mean that the customer is oblivious to responsible forest management. It is this general concern for all things green that many composite companies seek to satisfy.

"I think the end consumer probably cares about sustainable forestry - trees being there for the future, wildlife being there for the future. I think those values certainly exist in the consumers' minds," Baker says. "I don't know if they think about it when they go buy a piece of lumber, but they certainly care about the future of the forests out there. I don't think they care whether it's SFI, FSC or American Tree Farm."

Generally speaking, companies see forest and product certification as a call to provide assurance to the consumer that the industry is using its resources wisely. As McMillan says, "We think that's a good thing, not a bad thing. We think it's good because it is a way to demonstrate to the public at large that the private industrial timberlands in the United States are being managed properly."

Elaine Robson, quality analyst for West Fraser Ranger Board, views forest and product certification as tools to bring wise environmental practices by panel companies into the limelight. "I think formal documentation of our emergency response plan, our environmental procedures, our waste practices and other things is nicely summarized by the certification process," she says. Having these practices certified means proof -- to consumers, as well as to the industry itself -- of responsible management, she says.

"The issue here is sustainable forestry," says Baker. "It's not the program. I would like to make sure that the public understands that the forest industry is very focused and committed to sustainable forestry."