John Bouwer is one of the old school. He believes in responsible management and corporate integrity and that includes his sawmilling business – VKW Hardwoods – its staff and its attitude towards the local forest resource.
He had read up on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) as a possible certification system for his sawmill and concentration yard; and he had attended sessions on the subject with the Hardwood Manufacturers Association. SFI was fast becoming the main certification system in North America, accommodating the problems of small forest landowners.
Mr Bouwer had concluded that the chain of custody requirements of FSC were not practical in his case. “But,” he said, “I knew VKW was responsible, with a good record and objectives.”
So in 2001 he decided to assign a member of staff to work full-time for six months to achieve third-party certification.
“We needed to be able to say to the world that we are responsible and can back it up, both for our domestic and export customers.”
Paperwork
As with all certification systems there are surprising amounts of paperwork and changes in procedures involved, for certification is about recording management and reporting progress rather than changing the forest.
The principle challenge for VKW was to follow up with every landowner, large or small, from whom logs are purchased. VKW assigned a staff member to visit every site to check that all environmental procedures were implemented.
Then an SFI questionnaire tailored to local forest conditions was sent to each landowner to check that best management procedures had been implemented in accordance with the SFI criteria. This questionnaire then became part of the file for later audit.
SFI has addressed the training of independent, non-landowning logging contractors as part of a very successful outreach programme. To date, 242 loggers in Michigan, and more than 70,000 loggers nationally have received SFI training.
In the case of VKW, a schedule of annual training was implemented and the company now tends to contract wherever possible with participating loggers.
Gatewood
When questioned about the issue of “gatewood” (logs offered by contractors at the yard gate rather than those purchased by tender with landowners), Mr Bouwer is very clear. “We pick up 99% of the gatewood ourselves so we identify the logger, the forest and can make our own assessment of its quality.”
The third party audit covers VKW’s own harvest and other producer sites, and because of this “our log buyers now say that many landowners prefer to sell standing timber to us rather than to non-SFI certified companies”.
“Thus we gain advantages in both our raw material supply and our ability to sell in the market,” said Mr Bouwer. “Each year we submit a self audit report, but every third year we have to contract with an independent third party auditor – and they are no pushover!”
Certified lumber gives the company important leverage in quality markets with discerning buyers – important, given its geographical disadvantage in Michigan, which is far from the eastern seaboard making freight expensive. “The value of SFI is hard to measure in dollars and cents, but I believe it is worthwhile and we will continue with it,” said Mr Bouwer.
Buyers taking advantage of VKW’s certified hardwood include UK national distributor James Latham plc and London-based C Blumsom Ltd. Just recently the UK Timber Frame Association recognised SFI and other eco-crediting bodies are likely to do the same.
