The Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) procurement assessed five certification schemes against 26 criteria developed in consultation with UK government and members of its steering group comprising the WWF and TTF. Schemes were scored against each criterion on a 3-point scale: 0 – inadequately addressed; 1 – partially addressed; and 2 – acceptable. To be judged “legal” a scheme had to score a minimum of 1 for each criterion relating to legality. To be judged “sustainable” a scheme had to achieve a minimum score of 1 for each criterion relating to sustainability and an overall score of 75% of the total possible score.

CPET concluded that products labelled by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Scheme and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) met requirements for sustainability. Forest lands certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Program satisfied the sustainability requirement, but its labelled products were deemed only as “legal” as they failed the 70% threshold criterion for certified content. Products labelled by the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) schemes and Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) were judged to be “legal” but not “sustainable”.

The results of CPET’s assessment cannot be analysed without reference to the UK political climate. Its criteria were heavily influenced by the UK government’s desire to ensure credibility with the green groups, notably WWF and Greenpeace. Development of tighter public procurement policy has stemmed directly from the embarrassment caused by Greenpeace campaigns targeting the use of “illegally sourced” wood in public sector contracts.

Against this background, the criteria can be understood as an attempt to accommodate the NGOs while meeting international obligations to avoid technical barriers to trade.

The fact that two schemes passed the assessment, shows that the criteria are achievable in the forest sector. And the criteria include some positive elements. They establish equality between certification schemes developed in accordance with both the UN inter-governmental forestry principles (ie like PEFC) and the FSC principles. They also acknowledge a role in forest certification for ISO guidelines which establish rules for certification for all industries.

But the criteria may be criticised on the grounds that they represent “best environmental practice” rather than “sustainability”, and they do not take sufficient account of “economic sustainability”. They also set environmental standards that go way beyond those demanded of other industries.

&#8220Sustainable forestry is about satisfying environmental, social, and economic needs of people living in and around forests”

Technical issues can also be raised, such as the requirement in the “sustainability” criteria for at least 70% certified wood content in labelled products. This does not align with evolving approaches to sustainable timber procurement. Due to the complexities of wood supply chains, there is a move towards lower threshold requirements for certified wood content in labelled products combined with tougher measures to ensure uncertified content is derived from legal, well managed sources. This approach has progressed furthest in the SFI Program, so its downgrading on the basis of the 70% threshold requirement reflects a limitation in the criteria.

It seems that the validity of CPET’s assessment is also undermined by its relative handling of the two international schemes – FSC and PEFC. The latter essentially failed the “sustainability test” because it was unable to convince CPET that its existing procedures for standards-setting and auditing guaranteed adequate participation in decision making. CPET highlighted uncertainty over some content in the PEFC technical documentation including that forest owners associations should “initiate the development of certification criteria”. It also concluded that there was not an explicit reference to balanced [stakeholder] representation and that commitment to consensus was ambiguous. The PEFC Council has changed procedures to remove these uncertainties. But CPET were probably justified in failing it on its criteria at the time of the assessment.

But if PEFC fails on the basis of a rigorous interpretation of the criteria, so should the FSC. Its use of “generic” standards should have been classed as a failure in at least one, possibly all three, of the CPET criteria covering forest certification standards-setting processes. FSC has issued forestry certificates in 61 countries, but it has accredited national forest certification standards in only nine. In the others, FSC certificates are issued against “generic” standards adapted from the FSC international principles by the FSC certification bodies following a fast-track local consultation process.

Sustainable forestry is about satisfying environmental, social, and economic needs of people living in and around forests. So standards have to be developed through participatory processes involving all [interested] groups at national or regional level. This is the only way of adapting international forestry principles to local circumstances and the FSC’s procedures for “generic” standards development are no substitute.

FSC is phasing out generic standards, but taking a long time about it. The CPET assessment provides an opportunity to help speed up this transition by making a distinction between certificates issued against FSC-endorsed national standards (legal and sustainable) and those issued against generic standards (legal). Without this distinction, the UK government is sending out a perverse signal. Why should forest operators go through the difficult process of evolving legitimate national certification standards when they can obtain certification using FSC’s fast-track process?

The CPET assessment has been a constructive contribution to the forest certification and sustainability debate, representing a real opportunity to move towards a more reasoned discussion of the contribution of each certification scheme. But the organisation needs to review its 70% threshold limit for certified wood content and its “sustainable” endorsement for FSC products derived from forests certified against “generic” standards.