The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is pilot testing new draft chain of custody standards for sawn timber which, it says, could kick-start the FSC certified wood products market.
The standard, being tested in Scandinavia, is designed to reward companies using certified material and would mean dispensing with the current 70% threshold for the amount of certified material required in a product.
FSC says it is designed to help companies demonstrate responsible sourcing to customers, prove that no product carrying the FSC logo contains wood from controversial sources and use certified material currently not being labelled.
Sofia Ryder, of FSC International’s policy and standards unit, admitted it may mean labels appearing on certified products which do not contain timber from a certified forest. But she said big sawmills would find it a more “realistic” operation.
She said: “It could have quite a big impact on the market, as long as we get the labelling right and keep controversial sources out of the product lines.”
The draft standard is based on an input-output system which allows sawmills to claim a proportion of their output in particular product lines as certified where that proportion directly corresponds with the amount of FSC timber entering that line in the mill.
A final decision on the draft standard will be made in June/July 2004.
