For a while back there I was concerned we might have hard-line green activists abseiling down the front of our house and bursting in through the windows to check whether the new hardwood floor was certified.
The reason for my concern was the last ‘comment’ in TTJ which sparked a bit of a backlash. On revisiting it, I admit, it might have come across as a tad critical of the Forest Stewardship Council and environmentalists per se. That was not intended and I’m not saying that just to save on window repairs.
I do think the FSC is doing a fine job and that TTJ should continue to give extensive coverage to it and the rising number of companies certified to its standards.
In raising awareness that wood from well-managed forests is good, the FSC will ultimately benefit the timber industry as well as the forests.
I also believe that the industry should take environmentalism to its bosom enthusiastically, both for ecological and commercial reasons. And, of course, many in the trade are doing precisely and proactively that.
That said, the feedback we get at TTJ is that alternative environmental certification bodies and the companies which use them do feel aggrieved when the FSC is held up as the arbiter of all-things ‘green’ and the only player in the market worth its salt.
I appreciate that it’s not the FSC actually saying these things itself. In fact, according to anecdotal evidence, it is occasionally embarrassed by the activities and statements of its more outspoken supporters. Nonetheless, the message gets out and other schemes and their backers naturally do not take kindly to the implications that they don’t quite pass muster.
Clearly the industry knows it must keep advancing on the environmental and certification fronts. Surely that’s more likely to happen if the various certification/accreditation schemes are not perceived, for whatever reason and on whoever’s say so, to be at loggerheads.
