Environmental Impacts of Multi-Storey Buildings Using Different ...

Timber Plus ProjectThe Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) systemThe Forest Stewardship Council began as an initiative of the conservation organisation World Wide Fund forNature. It became a corporation in October 1995 and is based in Mexico. The FSC is a framework, not a singlestandard. All national FSC initiatives are based on a common set of principles and criteria. The FSCCorporation assesses and approves different national standards. All FSC standards use a common label.FSC-accredited certifiers work on the basis of 10 general FSC principles and 56 criteria, as well as national orregional standards where they have been developed.Many nations have established FSC 'National Initiatives' and in Canada and the US there are several subregionseach with an FSC standard under development. The FSC currently covers about 84 million hectares offorest worldwide So far the FSC is concentrated in a few nations, with 36% of all FSC-certified forests inSweden, 15% in Poland, 11% in the USA and 4% in Brazil. The remaining 34% is located in smaller quantitiesacross 50 other nations. Only 3-4% of FSC certifications are in the Asia-Pacific region. No FSC standard hasyet been developed for application in Australia.FSC have a chain of custody (CoC) certification which certifies all parties involved in handling the product.As noted above, the FSC certification scheme is the only scheme recognised by the NZGBC for the purpose ofachieving Green Star rating scheme points.Canadian Standards Association (CSA)The first national certification scheme in Canada was approved in 1996 under the auspices of the CanadianStandards Association (CSA). While the development of the CSA certification standard was sponsored byindustrial organizations, a wide range of stakeholders were involved in the process. The Canadian Standard isbased on the management principles of the ISO 14001 but goes beyond them to include specific performancegoals. Third party auditing is required for certification. CSA provides for ‘chain of custody' certification for forestproducts originating from a certified forest, and provides for labelling. In 2006 the Canadian nationalsustainable forest management standard CAN/CSA Z809:2002 was endorsed by PEFC – it covers in excessof 15 million hectares.Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)SFI, like the international non-profit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), sets standards for sustainablyharvested timber, but SFI grew out of the trade group American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), andits certification process has long been seen by environmental groups as less robust than FSC’s. SFI gained anew measure of independence on January 1, 2007. Responsibility for the program was previously splitbetween the non-profit Sustainable Forestry Board and AF&PA; the multi-stakeholder Board of Directors of theSustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc. is now the sole governing body over the SFI Standard and all aspects ofthe program. Of the 15 board members, five are the CEOs of non-profit environmental groups; five boardmembers are the CEOs of forest products companies; and the remaining board members representstakeholders from the broader forest community. SFI is based on a set of principles, objectives andperformance measures. Under SFI, companies must demonstrate continuous improvement in meeting SFI'sforest management objectives. The area covered by the SFI in January 2007 was over 126 million hectares.Page 8 of 21 May 2008