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FSC Versus SFI | |
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FSC Versus SFI Once in place, possibly as soon as early 2010, the rules will replace the simple FSC monopoly with generalized benchmarks for evaluating systems claiming to enforce sustainable forestry. This will open up consideration to various "green" wood labeling systems that have sprung up in recent years, including SFI, as well as the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) forest certification, and the European Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC). High Stakes Depending on how the benchmarks are written and applied, they might allow SFI products to qualify for the same amount of LEED credit that FSC lumber now receives. That prospect has set off a passionate debate between competing supporters of the two high-profile wood eco-labels, a debate with potentially huge consequences for the future of green building. On its face, this might seem like a big fight over a little credit. Choosing an FSC-certified wood source today nets projects only a single point out of the dozens it takes to earn certification under the various LEED subsystems. But the stakes are higher than that might suggest. Green building, which represented just 2 percent of the construction market in 2005, could grow to as much as a quarter of all commercial and institutional building starts and 20 percent of the value of residential starts by 2013, according to McGraw Hill Construction's Green Outlook 2009 market intelligence report, which noted that green building is one market segment seemingly insulated from the current construction industry malaise. By 2013, the green building sector could grow to $93 billion to $140 billion. With so many greenbacks — and the future of "green" — in the balance, the USGBC has embarked on the lengthy and controversial process of revising the LEED wood sourcing standard. The USGBC began work on the wood benchmarks two years ago. The first draft, issued in August 2008, received a record number of public comments for the USGBC. The long-awaited second draft is expected out in mid-September 2009, which will likely lead to another comment avalanche. After receiving and digesting those, the USGBC hopes to approve the new evaluation system quickly. The new benchmarks and conformance assessment are expected to be operating by the first quarter of 2010, according to Whit Faulconer, USGBC's director of LEED technical development. Once those are done, the USGBC will be open to hearing groups such as SFI make the case that their certified lumber should receive LEED credit. "It really is high time that USGBC take a look at this, because the forest certification market has changed in the last decade," SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow says. "It's fabulous. We are very, very pleased." FSC supporters, however, see the development as part of a wider building industry gambit to pass off status-quo business practices as environmentally friendly. While FSC supporters say they welcome science-based standards, they fear the USGBC will succumb to pressure to lower the bar on forest protection. "If our leading green building rating system can't maintain its leadership, we should all be concerned," Corey Brinkema, president of FSC-US, who warns that SFI's entrance into the LEED rating system could halt the "greening" of mainstream building practices that has been gaining momentum in recent years. "If [SFI] gets recognized as good enough, that sends a pretty powerful signal that existing practices are adequate." The Labels While the two are not the only environmental standards for wood, FSC and SFI are major forces in the U.S. green building market. FSC, which operates in dozens of countries, is widely viewed as the most stringent forest certification system available. But SFI has certified more acres in North America — the only area it operates in — and its lumber is easier to find at U.S. lumber yards and retail outlets. On the ground, the two labels differ significantly in their protections for natural forests. FSC's conservation standards tend to be more concrete, while SFI's are vaguer targets with fewer measurable requirements. FSC prohibits landowners using its label from converting natural forests into tree farms or other non-forest uses in the vast majority of cases, while SFI has no such prohibition. Before gaining FSC certification, forest managers not only must develop with a plan for maintaining the ecological functions of the certified forests, they must also identify, map, and preserve "high conservation value" tracts that have high biodiversity, are home to endangered species, or play a vital role in the lives of local communities or in the region or country. FSC also requires consultations with indigenous and other local people living in or around the forest. While SFI calls for forest conservation, there are no concrete requirements for community consultations or for set-asides to preserve areas of high biodiversity. There are also no prohibitions on many conventional silviculture practices that the FSC bans as harmful to forest ecology. The two organizations differ greatly in their origins, too. FSC was formed on the heels of the 1992 Rio Summit by a group of environmental groups, grassroots social organizations, and industry representatives determined to do something about rampant worldwide deforestation. SFI, in contrast, was started by the trade group American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), which shaped the rules and managed SFI's payroll, bookkeeping, and other core functions until 2007. Despite their many differences, however, critics see some of the same weaknesses in both certification systems. According to Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist at Consumers Union, both FSC and SFI undermine their own credibility by letting lumber industry executives participate in setting the rules for certification. "They have industry voting on the standards. For that reason alone, they are not independent labels," she says. Consumers Union reviews and compares the claims on green labels on its GreenerChoices web site. While the biggest challenge for FSC, which operates internationally, is how to standardize rules that vary from country to country, Rangan says SFI is more fundamentally flawed. "We find there is less meat on the bone with SFI," she says. "There are really no teeth behind it. It's very loosey goosey." While broadly seen as presenting a higher environmental bar, even FSC has been faulted for certifying timber from old-growth forests, which represent a tiny and rapidly shrinking percentage of the world's timberlands, but are home to a disproportionately large number of plant and animal species, many of them endangered. Both SFI and FSC have weathered some scandals. Environmentalists in Washington state and Maine brought separate complaints against two of SFI's most prominent members — Weyerhaeuser Co. and Plum Creek Timber Co., Inc. — accusing the companies of failing to meet SFI's own standards in 2006. FSC came under fire in 2007 after news broke that it planned to certify some paper from Asian Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd. (APP), a Singapore-based industry giant known for its clearcutting and other destructive forestry practices. The Wall Street Journal reported that FSC was poised to certify as "mixed source" some paper that combined pulp from an APP plantation with "fully FSC-certified pulp" from companies elsewhere. The two certification programs reacted differently to public outcry. After the Asian Pulp & Paper scandal surfaced, FSC severed its ties to Singapore-based APP. At SFI, however, Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek, continue to hold seats on the board of directors. >>> Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...
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