On January 13, Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Inc. released a new standard that reinforces its important role in supporting and promoting sustainable forest management as one of the world's leading third-party forest certification programs.
In today’s audio broadcast, you will hear Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of SFI, discuss the new SFI 2010-2014 Standard and how it will affect print service providers.
To give you a “sneak preview,” here are some of the questions we discussed:
- Would you take a few minutes to give us a quick overview of the new standard?
- When I looked at the announcement you had 14 principles, 20 objectives, 39 measures, and 14 indicators. If you would pick out the top three or four really important issues that you address in this standard that weren't addressed before...
- The last couple of years have been financially difficult for small print companies and all their expenses are being scrutinized. While consumers and print buyers are saying they want to buy green products, they seem to be resistant to paying the additional premium for certified paper. As a result the cost of Chain of Custody certification has been positioned against perceived value and small printers are wondering whether to re-certify. Does CoC certification continue to have value? How do you express value?
- Several years ago, Chain of Custody certification was big news. Now companies have two or three CoC certifications. It's a sign that you as a certifying program, as one of several, have been doing your job. As I look at the standards, it seem like CoC certifications are becoming more similar, addressing the same issues. Are these certifications approaching redundancy?
- There are threats from other interests like housing development across the country and mountain top mining in Appalachia, that want to convert forests to other uses than fiber and timber production. When you talk about emerging issues we need to consider the carbon values that apply to those forests. How do you balance those other issues and values when you certify forest land?
