Reflections on PEFC’s 25th year anniversary and forest certification

?By: Tracy Wessels, Group Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability, Sappi

The history of labelling wood products with a stamp of quality stretches back to 1637 when a French royal decree stipulated this requirement on members of the guild of furniture cabinet makers. Nevertheless, it was not until around the 1990s that public concerns around deforestation, especially in the tropics, spurred an emergence of forest certification for other types of wood products.

Forest certification is a voluntary, market-based instrument where an independent third-party assesses and provides verifiable, standardised evidence of sustainable forest management. It therefore helps forest owners and managers to show that they are following best practices and empowers consumers and brands to opt for sustainably sourced products. The latter helps support landowners who demonstrate sustainable management practices, ensures responsibly harvested wood, and creates an incentive for manufacturers to procure certified fibre. PEFC was founded in 1999 in response to the specific requirements of small- and family forest owners that had been unable to achieve forest certification through alternative certification systems. Since then, PEFC has grown to become a global forest certification system with a unique approach.

“Sustainable forestry has been a key pillar of our paper procurement strategy over many years,” said David Schirmer, VP and General Manager, Hearst Enterprises. “PEFC played a major role in helping us to execute and verify this pillar.”

Certification also encourages forest managers to streamline forest operations and improve forest conservation outcomes. Although it does involve multi-stakeholder administrative processes that could incur direct and indirect costs, with growing regulatory pressures, certification may become essential for maintaining access to certain markets. For some markets, certified woodfibre has become the norm rather than the exception.

“Well established certification schemes are a critical part of our value chain," said Hlengiwe Ndlovu, Divisional Environmental Manager, Sappi. “Besides being a robust, well-developed independent confirmation of responsible, sustainable sourcing, their expertise and collaborative approach enables our industry to address future dynamic challenges like water and biodiversity."

At the end of last year, five small timber growers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, made history by becoming the first participants in the Sappi Khulisa programme to achieve forest certification through the? Sappi PEFC Group Scheme for small growers. Covering a total of 8,143 hectares of timber area, this follows years of intensive efforts by Sappi and other industry players in addressing barriers of entry for small growers. It also involved contributing to developing a Forest Management Standard and creating a certification tool tailored to South Africa’s environmental and socioeconomic conditions.

Collaboration will become even more important in PEFC’s next quarter of a century, particularly given the ongoing nuanced complexities of various environmental challenges and the dynamic changes in the regulatory and legislative landscape. It’s therefore an ideal moment to commend PEFC for its 25th anniversary achievements, as well as to continue demonstrating the tangible value of forest certification beyond today’s existing players and sectors.

?