As the certifiers do not roam around inspecting forests, it is up to the manager or
the owner of a forest to take the initiative of getting his forest certified. It is usually in
his interest to have this inspection, albeit against payment, because it opens access to
more markets and customers through the improved reputation and standing obtained
via an independent third party certification. The principle of FSC certification is that
customers can believe it, because it is not the company boasting itself, but the
product of an examination, against internationally accepted best practice standards,
by trained and experienced inspectors who will impose conditions or say no, if
required.
(3) to establish another instrument for tracing products from such a licensed forest
through the complex supply chain down to the customers, so that a customer
could be certain that the chair, board or paper that he was purchasing in a store,
with a FSC logo, really originated from a properly managed forest.
This step is carried out by documenting the “chain of custody” or paper trail,
which records how wood from a tree cut in Malaysia finishes as a board on sale in a
store in Cape Town. Even when the forest is certified, the forest’s owners may send
its timber to a sawmill that also processes uncertified timber, and then the sawmill
may send its cut wood to a factory that also purchases uncertified cut wood, and so
on. The web of interrelationships among producers, suppliers, manufacturers,
wholesalers, and retail stores becomes so complex that even the companies themselves do not always know where their wood ultimately originates from or ends up,
except for knowing their immediate suppliers and customers. In order to instill
confidence in the Cape Town customer, that the board she is purchasing truly
came from a tree in a certified forest, intermediate suppliers must retain certified
and non-certified material separate, and auditors must endorse that every intermediate supplier really does that. That constitutes “certifying the chain of custody”:
tracking certified materials through the whole supply chain. A fastidious job, but
essential, because otherwise the customer could not be confident about the origins of
that board in the Cape Town store.
Price is the most significant parameter in purchasing decisions, but experiments
have shown that the public really does consider environmental values when effecting
its purchases, and a significant portion of the public accepts to pay more for those
values.
It would further seem that certification does not add significantly to the wood
product’s inherent cost. In fact, retailers offering a certified product, in high demand,
but available only in short supply, found that they could increase the price, without
any decrease in sales.
While home construction is the largest wood consumer, most homeowners do not
know, choose, or control the choice of forestry companies providing the wood used
in their house. Rather, the customers of forestry products include the buyer group of
companies buying in bulk to supply furniture, etc. to individual customers. The
“green building standard” known as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has been instrumental in spreading the use of the FSC logo. As the LEED
code grades the environmental design and use of materials in the construction
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4 Infrastructure Vision for Sustainable Development
the owner of a forest to take the initiative of getting his forest certified. It is usually in
his interest to have this inspection, albeit against payment, because it opens access to
more markets and customers through the improved reputation and standing obtained
via an independent third party certification. The principle of FSC certification is that
customers can believe it, because it is not the company boasting itself, but the
product of an examination, against internationally accepted best practice standards,
by trained and experienced inspectors who will impose conditions or say no, if
required.
(3) to establish another instrument for tracing products from such a licensed forest
through the complex supply chain down to the customers, so that a customer
could be certain that the chair, board or paper that he was purchasing in a store,
with a FSC logo, really originated from a properly managed forest.
This step is carried out by documenting the “chain of custody” or paper trail,
which records how wood from a tree cut in Malaysia finishes as a board on sale in a
store in Cape Town. Even when the forest is certified, the forest’s owners may send
its timber to a sawmill that also processes uncertified timber, and then the sawmill
may send its cut wood to a factory that also purchases uncertified cut wood, and so
on. The web of interrelationships among producers, suppliers, manufacturers,
wholesalers, and retail stores becomes so complex that even the companies themselves do not always know where their wood ultimately originates from or ends up,
except for knowing their immediate suppliers and customers. In order to instill
confidence in the Cape Town customer, that the board she is purchasing truly
came from a tree in a certified forest, intermediate suppliers must retain certified
and non-certified material separate, and auditors must endorse that every intermediate supplier really does that. That constitutes “certifying the chain of custody”:
tracking certified materials through the whole supply chain. A fastidious job, but
essential, because otherwise the customer could not be confident about the origins of
that board in the Cape Town store.
Price is the most significant parameter in purchasing decisions, but experiments
have shown that the public really does consider environmental values when effecting
its purchases, and a significant portion of the public accepts to pay more for those
values.
It would further seem that certification does not add significantly to the wood
product’s inherent cost. In fact, retailers offering a certified product, in high demand,
but available only in short supply, found that they could increase the price, without
any decrease in sales.
While home construction is the largest wood consumer, most homeowners do not
know, choose, or control the choice of forestry companies providing the wood used
in their house. Rather, the customers of forestry products include the buyer group of
companies buying in bulk to supply furniture, etc. to individual customers. The
“green building standard” known as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has been instrumental in spreading the use of the FSC logo. As the LEED
code grades the environmental design and use of materials in the construction
118
4 Infrastructure Vision for Sustainable Development