Comments on: Campaign against Sustainable Forestry Initiative Escalates

By: Seven F500 Companies Stop Using SFI Certified Wood

Seven F500 Companies Stop Using SFI Certified Wood — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:07:17 +0000

[...] of businesses that decided to stop using the SFI certification and in some cases to switch to FSC-the competing forest certification. Last March seven other companies: Aetna, Allstate, Garnet Hill, Office Depot, Performance [...]

By: Spotlight on IP – Millions of Dollars Spent Greenwashing | Dogwood Alliance

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:27:10 +0000

[...] marketing intended to obscure irresponsible foresting standards. To read more about this, check out this article or this [...]

By: KFC Rolls Out Reusable Plastic Containers | greengopost.com

KFC Rolls Out Reusable Plastic Containers | greengopost.com — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:35:55 +0000

[...] which will draw the ire of some sustainability experts. The SFI has come under fire for its ties to the timber industry, and both the FTC and IRS have complained about the organization’s claim [...]

By: Paper or Plastic? KFC Introduces Reusable Plastic Packaging | Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:57:56 +0000

By: today

today — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:08:46 +0000

public comment period for USGBC selection of certification standards ends 7/1/10…

By: Jon Gelbard

Jon Gelbard — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:18:23 +0000

Not to mention that FSC has problems with compliance monitoring.

You can have the best science-based standards in the world, but if nobody is monitoring at lots of certified sites (especially in remote parts of the developing world), how can you know whether the wood was, in fact, sustainably harvested?

Having cutting-edge standards is only one half of the battle. Having adequate compliance monitoring and enforcement is the other.

I’ve seen some graduate students explore this issue, but we need to get more bodies on the ground out there in FSC forests — and even in SFI forests — gathering more data and helping refine these systems’ true impacts on metrics of forest ecosystem health.

By: FWL Hill

FWL Hill — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:48:26 +0000

Maybe ForestEthics should direct their cleverness toward Forest Stewardship Council. Check out http://tinyurl.com/ye5c3pg about one of their proud supporters. Smacks of greenwashing to me.

By: Robyn

Robyn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:42:11 +0000

I am all for certifying forestry but FSC needs to come clean about the way auditing changes from country to country. How come in some of the more wealthy countries they don’t recognise native forestry and in the third world countries this isn’t the case? How come they certify plantations who do not take biodiversity into consideration and clear fell? Just a couple of the many discrepencies in there certification.

By: Kathryn Siranosian

Kathryn Siranosian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:32:02 +0000

…all of which is even more reason to take a look at the technology that Singapore-based Double Helix Tracking Technologies is developing. I wrote about them here yesterday:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/11/double-helix-tracking-technologies-uses-dna-to-track-timber-fight-illegal-logging/ DHTT is using DNA to track timber –it’s like a paternity test for wood. A scientific solution like this will add clarity to the muddled –and often fraudulent –paper-based verification and certification systems that are the industry standard today.