Lumber retailers demanding FSC standards be met.

• Author: Ross, Ian

Northern Ontario lumber companies are experimenting with various harvesting techniques, focused on the ecosystem

There was a time when consumers arid lumber retailers gave little thought to where the wood they built homes with, or the furniture they purchased, came from. Did it come from a clear cut old growth forest? Was wildlife habitat destroyed? Were the cultural rights of indigenous people respected during harvesting operations?

That has all changed with a growing international consumer trend to demand that forestry companies follow socially and environmentally responsible guidelines.

Forest products companies are now vying for the coveted logo of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international body that sets stringent ecological certification standards in spelling out the practice by which trees must be harvested.

Forest products are a $60-billion a year industry in Canada with more than half the fibre harvested being exported.

But the world's perception is that Canada overlogs, forcing forestry companies to bow to the environmentalist, consumer and retail pressure to change their ways.

While only one per cent of the available wood supply is eligible to be certified, this trend may eventually shut out some companies out of the international marketplace.

The certification message really hit home when Home Depot, North America's largest lumber retailer, announced by the late 2002 it will only sell wood that meets FSC standards.

Other lumber and furniture manufacturers like Ikea and Lowe's have made similar pronouncements and some of Britain's largest retail lumber chains have followed suit.

"It's about demonstrating their social and environmental responsibilities to shareholders," says Jim McCarthy, executive director of FSC Canada, "and certainly some of that comes from pressure out there about whether people are illegally harvesting wood from rain forests and tropical and rare wood products.

"Companies at the end of the supply chain in many cases are relatively unaware of what might be happening that allowed them access to that wood supply."

Consumers who buy a product stamped with an FSC logo are assured that wood comes from a sustainably managed forest that has been monitored by independent auditors, McCarthy explains.

These standards are among the most recognized and toughest in the world, based on a company's performance and forest management plan from asocial, environmental and economic perspective. Particular emphasis is...