Forest certified products
from SCA
PE FC /05- 33-132
Promoting Sustainable
Forest Management
www.pefc.org
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FSC
®
Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) is an independent, international organisation that promotes the
development of environmentally compatible, socially
beneficial and financially sound, practices for management of the world’s forests. FSC has established
fundamental principles and criteria for responsible
forest management. For example these principles
call for the protection and preservation of biological
diversity and other natural resources, supporting
economically sound forestry operations. This contributes to the development of the local community. ASI
accredits certification bodies, empowered to ensure
that FSC’s standards are met with the auditors granting certificates attesting to their compliance. FSC is
supported by major environmental organisations in
all parts of the world, among them WWF.
Read more on the FSC home page: www.fsc.org
PEFC™
PEFC, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest
Certification, is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting sustainable
forest management through independent third-party
certification. PEFC promote good practices in the forest
and aims to ensure that timber and non-timber forest
products are produced with respect for the highest ecological, social and ethical standards. PEFC is based on
small-scale family forestry conditions and have national
certification standards in line with the international
PEFC guidelines. PEFC supports small land owners
to gain recognition in the market place thereby making
a lasting contribution to livelihoods and rural development. To date, several hundred-thousand family- and
community-owned forests have acquired PEFC certification. The demand for PEFC-certified products has
risen steadily in recent years. PEFC is the world’s largest forest certification organization with over 240 million
hectares of certified forest land.
Read more on the PEFC home page: www.pefc.org
Similarities and differences
Both FSC and PEFC promote responsible forest
management, where an active economic management of the forest goes hand in hand with environmental and social responsibility. Certification of
forestry endorses marketing campaigns for forest
products with more and more businesses and consumers choosing to buy certified products as part
of their environmental commitment.
PEFC and FSC are not interchangeable. To sell
FSC certified products you must hold an FSC
Chain-of-Custody (CoC)-certificate and likewise for
PEFC. To sell either PEFC or FSC certified products you must hold CoC certificates. In order to
use the PEFC logo a license is also required. The
FSC standard requires both a license and approval
each time the FSC logo is used.
There are several differences between the two
certification systems and how they are applied in
different countries. The General Assembly is FSC’s
highest decision-making body. The GA is divided in
three chambers for economic, ecologic and social
stakeholders respectively, and a decision requires
a majority vote in every chamber. The GA adopted
a new set of principles and criteria in 2011, which
will afford the FSC certification more uniformity
between countries.
PEFC is an umbrella organisation for national
forest certification systems. It works by endorsing national forest certification systems developed
through multi-stakeholder processes and tailored to
local priorities and conditions. Each national forest
certification system undergoes rigorous third-party
assessment against PEFC’s unique Sustainability
Benchmarks to ensure consistency with international requirements.
Both standards give high priority to ecological
concerns and require that forests with high conservation values are protected. PEFC emphasises
training and workplace safety for forest workers
and FSC stresses concern for indigenous peoples
and dialogue with local stakeholders.
Both FSC and PEFC have a global scope certifiying forest management all over the world, from the
management of boreal forests in Northern Europe
and North America to the management of tropical
rain forests.
Source control is required
Certified product requires traceability and a certified Chain-ofCustody (CoC) from the forest to
the final customer.
CoC, as well as the control of
uncertified raw material, are
audited by accredited certification bodies.
In the source control certification
process, the entire chain from
forestry operations to finished
product must be documented.
A CoC-certificate is required for
every link in the chain, from the
forest to the paper mill, from the
paper mill to the printing plant,
from the printing plant to the
finished publication. The same
organisations, accredited to
certify forestry operations, also
oversee certification of CoC.
FSC 100%, where all the raw material is FSC-certified.
FSC
The raw material input is linked with the output of
certified products for a specific product line. The
producer keeps a record of the volume of FSCcertified timber that is being supplied and a corresponding share of the products may be certified.
These are referred to as FSC credits and must be
used for the production of FSC-certified products
within a 12-month period or they are forfeited. The
CoC-standard also demands a strict control of
uncertified raw material. All of the raw material fibre
for the FSC-certified product line must come from
controlled sources. No raw material may come from
controversial sources. This means that the FSC’s
drive for responsible forest management is being
expanded into forests that are not certified. The
FSC products from SCA
SCA’s pulp, publication papers, sustainable
packaging and containerboard are certified as
FSC Mix. SCA delivers FSC-certified products
only on request and only to FSC-certified printers, converters, publishers and end-users! This
is to avoid deliveries of FSC-products outside
the CoC, to avoid that FSC is wrongly used as
a unique selling point and door-opener and to
reduce the risk of misusing the FSC label in the
market.
FSC alternatives
FSC Mix, where the input of FSC-certified raw material equals the output of FSC-certified products, while the uncertified raw materials are strictly controlled in order to avoid timber from controversial sources.
Recovered fibre may also form
part of the basis for this label.
FSC Recycled, where all of the raw material is
recovered fibre.
Options for Chain-of-Custody
For FSC Mix there are two options for certification:
• The minimum share system – The fibre material
in the product contains more than 70% FSCcertified fibre (and the rest of the fibre material
meet the requirements in the standard for Controlled Wood).
• The volume credit system – The producer holds
a volume credit account where the input of FSCcertified fibre is documented. A corresponding
share of the production may then be certified.
Both systems may be applied in the same CoC and
the FSC share need to be recalculated in a corresponding way. As with other FSC-standards, the
CoC-standard is applied by an accredited auditor.
The Controlled Wood-standard contains minimum
requirements for fibre raw material that is not FSCcertified. No fibre in an FSC-certified product may
come from controversial sources. Material in the
product that is not fibre, such as fillers and coating,
is not part of the calculations.
PEFC
The traceability standard is international and
therefore common to all national PEFC certification
systems. Two different methods are used to follow
wood raw materials through the supply chain from
forest to end user. Chain-of-Custody certificate is
required from all companies involved in the chain.
In one method the company separates certified raw
material and products from non-certified material
by the use of different storage places. In the other
method the company calculates the share of certified wood or products in a purchased lot. SCA applies the latter method. For the labelling the product
must contain at least 70% certified wood.
PEFC logo options
Different options are available to label products,
depending on the tracking method used and the
share of certified raw material. A minimum content of 70% of PEFC certified material from PEFC
certified forest and/or recycled sources, as well as
wood from controlled sources as prescribed by the
PEFC due diligence-system. The PEFC Recycled
Label indicates that the product contains at least
70% PEFC-certified material from recycled sources
or wood from recycled sources. The Möbius loop is
an optional element for this label only. The different
options may be accompanied by option specific
claims.
The logo can be used optionally, on or off product,
under licence from PEFC. Certified forests are the
start of the chain of custody and each subsequent
link must have a chain of custody certificate to
allow forest-based products to be traced from the
forest to the finished product.
Percentage based claims
This method, that SCA is using, allows the mixing
of certified and non-certified raw material in the
production or trading process. However the share
of PEFC-certified raw material must be known and
communicated to the company’s customers (average percentage method calculates the average
share of certified material that is included in a
product group). As an alternative, the company can
sell a share of PEFC-certified products that corresponds to the share of PEFC-certified raw material
used (the share is documented in a volume credit
account).
Eco lifecycle
Forests play a crucial role in the cycles affecting
the climate. Through photosynthesis growing trees
sequester an enormous amount of carbon dioxide from the air. The forests as they grow release
oxygen in the process. The carbon in the wood of
the trees is stored and kept out of the atmosphere
until the wood fibre have decomposed or burned.
Timber from a tree becomes wood and paper products that continue to hold stored carbon. Wooden
houses, for example, may store carbon for centuries. And when eventually the tree, the house or
the paper decays and the carbon becomes carbon
dioxide once more and will be the same amount of
carbon dioxide as the tree sequestered when growing. If the fibre is used for fuel and is substituting
fossil fuels such as oil or coal, the positive effect on
the climate is even greater.
Growing forests are one of the most effective
means to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the at-
mosphere. SCA’s well managed forests (2.6 million
hectares) are the biggest asset in our environmental work, but also provide an important strategic
resource to secure the raw material supply to our
pulp and paper products. SCA’s various production plants for sawn timber, pellets, pulp and paper
involves the efficient usage of the whole tree.
About 100 million seedlings are grown each year
to produce new forests. The standing volume of
living, growing trees has grown from 130 million m³
in 1947 to over 200 million m³ today and is forecast
to grow to 250 million m³ by year 2035. The growth
rate in our forests is more than 30 per cent higher
than the felling and as a result our forests are net
sequestering 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
every year. That is more than the total fossil carbon
dioxide emissions from our forestry, our production
processes and our transport of both raw materials
and products in all of SCA Forest Products.
The interest in forest certified publication papers is
growing; therefore SCA Ortviken achieved PEFC certification for their paper products in 2012. Since 1999, the mill
has offered FSC certified products.
The combination of TCF (Total Chlorine Free), FSC, PEFC and
uniquely low carbon footprints has given SCA Östrand a leading
position among kraft pulp mills with the lowest environmental impact.
The interest in sustainability and forest certification for packaging
products grows and now SCA Containerboard offers all of its products
as FSC and PEFC. We also have a totally chlorine-free process for the
production of our white products.
Layout: Originaldesign Sweden
Print: Tryckeribolaget, May 2014.
Both the paper and the printer are FSC certified.
Part of the SCA team
For more information please look at:
sca.com/publicationpapers | sca.com/pulp | sca.com/sp | sca.com/containerboard