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FSC Versus SFI | |
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FSC Versus SFI SFI Advances But SFI's Abusow says such comparisons miss the big picture: Only 10 percent of the world's forests are certified to be sustainable today, she says. All of those certification programs should get credit for their environmental contribution, she says, since they represent "the gold performers." "When we start to get into the weeds of one standard over the other standard, we're not paying attention to the fact that 90 percent of the world's forests today aren't certified," she says. "SFI and FSC should be working together to tackle the problems of the 90 percent that aren't certified." SFI has already made inroads with other certification systems for green building: SFI has already made inroads with other certification systems for green building: Green Globes and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) National Green Building Standard both accept SFI-certified wood. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — a.k.a. the stimulus package — which requires green building techniques in school construction and renovation projects, allows SFI wood in those projects. Even the new playground installed outside the White House has SFI-certified wood, according to SFI. SFI also has relationships with environmental groups — notably, some more business-friendly ones, such as The Conservation Fund, NatureServe, and Conservation International. And Steven J. McCormick, president and chief executive of The Nature Conservancy, chaired the SFI board for two terms until 2007. In the last decade or so, those ties have helped propel SFI to improve its conservation goals and its procedures to achieve those goals, according to a high-level employee at one environmental group, who declined to be named for fear of jeopardizing its relations with industry officials. That source also echoed some of Urvashi Rangan's concerns, saying environmentalists have been frustrated that SFI has failed to add "teeth" that would make its conservation goals enforceable. SFI left the auspices of the AF&PA in 2007, and Abusow says her organization severed all ties with the trade association in 2008 and is now a "fully independent" nonprofit group. The overhaul also included instituting membership fees for the first time. Those helped rocket the organization's annual budget to $5.5 million in 2007, up from around $676,000 a year earlier. A chunk of that additional cash went to the advertising firm Porter Novelli, which earned $1.8 million, according to the 2007 tax forms, the most recent available. FSC Responds "We don't have those millions to spend," says Brinkema, the FSC-US president. But FSC is not without powerful allies among environmentalists and green-industry executives. "What we're going to continue to do is make sure the USGBC knows what's at stake for U.S. forests and the world's forests," says Brinkema, who calls the debate "the single most controversial" credit fight in LEED's nine-year history. This is not the first attempt SFI has made for recognition in the LEED system. A skirmish five or six years ago was quickly beaten back by FSC and its environmentalist allies. When the issue resurfaced, USGBC launched the benchmark plan. But the first draft of that plan sparked outrage among FSC supporters. "When it first came out, we thought it looked a lot like the SFI standard," Brinkema says, adding that the proposed rules were too vague and could open the door to destructive forestry practices under the guise of green. For Brinkema and other forest defenders, such as Daniel Hall, a campaigner with the environmental group ForestEthics, the battle over LEED's sustainable wood credit is a fight not just over forests, but also over burgeoning green business initiatives. "It's been left to the marketplace to work out how best to ensure that our national resources are managed well and sustainably," Hall says. But "vested interests in the industry have pushed back by creating sham certification processes that really rubber-stamp status-quo practices that have decimated our forests," he says, referring to SFI and others, backed by the traditional building trades, that allow logging in old growth and even some endangered forests. "If LEED wants to go to the next level, the best thing LEED could do would be to adopt a stipulation that there not be any wood from endangered ecosystems," says Hall. Even under the current rules, the LEED approach to wood sourcing is far from environmentally pure. For instance, it allows builders to use FSC-certified framing or finishing materials from old-growth forests and still win the credit for sustainable lumber sourcing. And projects can use uncertified lumber and still receive a green building plaque to hang on the wall as long as they earn enough points in other areas, such as water conservation and energy efficiency. But observers suggest such a move could make LEED certification more costly and difficult to achieve. And strengthening sustainable wood standards appears politically unlikely, considering that AF&PA, NAHB, and other industry groups have stepped up pressure on USGBC with their support of competing green building standards that are cheaper and easier for mainstream builders to meet. Much as FSC has been engaged in a market-share battle by SFI, the USGBC and LEED supporters are wrestling with industry groups attempting to slow LEED momentum by blocking proposals put forth by grassroots environmental activists around the country to incorporate LEED standards into municipal and state building codes. Some industry groups have also introduced their own watered-down building label systems. Seeing the Forest for the Trees The vast majority of lumber used in U.S. homes and office buildings comes from North America, and only about a quarter of it bears any type of sustainability certification, according to the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance, which prepared a 2008 report on the USGBC's policy options for forest certification. The Yale data puts SFI's share at more than 10 percent, and FSC's at less than 5 percent (in 2006). As for Home Depot, today it reports that more than 90 percent of the wood it sells is certified by third-party standards like FSC, SFI, CSA, and PEFC. But only about 5 percent of that certified wood is FSC-certified, "due to limited supply," according to a company spokeswoman. Brinkema says FSC has certified 280 million acres worldwide (about 113 million hectares), about 100 million (40.5 million hectares) of them in North America. But SFI and other systems, such as ATFS, have had more success in expanding the number of acres certified and pushing for market recognition. According to SFI, it has 163 million acres (66 million hectares) certified across North America as of June 30, 2009. "They've been one of the most vocal proponents of their system and worked very hard to get their forest certification system recognition in some way," says the USGBC's Faulconer, referring to SFI. Green building consultant Jason Grant of Sebastopol, California, believes the shortage of FSC wood results from an intentional industry effort to undermine the label. "The industry has developed an embargo on FSC to try to keep it in a boutique box," he says. Others say the slower rate of growth for FSC is because it is simply easier for timberland owners to become certified to SFI standards without major investments and overhauls to their conventional forestry practices. Will the USGBC Step Back? There is some concern among FSC proponents that pressure from deep-pocketed forest industry groups may succeed in getting USGBC to step back on wood certification standards, a possibility Faulconer dismisses. Describing the process of developing the sustainable lumber-sourcing benchmarks, he says, "We are trying to create a wish list of the best-possible-case scenario." Others are not so sure, including Dan Harrington, director of product development at EcoTimber, Inc., a Richmond, California-based distributor of FSC-certified flooring and other wood products. "The old guard [in the building industry] is more than willing to expend some resources to maintain its position," Harrington says. "If an industry trade association is able to throw its weight around and water down a green standard, it invites other industries to do the same." With neither FCS nor SFI calibrated to maintain carbon sequestration in certified forests — nor even prohibiting the devastation of old-growth logging — the scope of the FCS versus SFI controversy illustrates how far we have to go before green labeling represents truly sustainable wood sourcing. Even so, the implications of FSC versus SFI for the core integrity of LEED certification suggest this fight is one of the most significant in the fledgling history of green business. Christine MacDonald is the author of Green, Inc.: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad, Lyons Press, 2008. Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...
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