Executive Director of the Finnish PEFC, which is responsible for forest certification Tatu Liimatainen emphasizes the multidimensionality of sustainability and responsibility.
“Our certification is based on holistic principles. This means that we support sustainability and responsibility by ensuring that ecological, social and economic aspects are taken into account in the use of forests.”
Private forest owners and municipalities own about 60 percent of all forest land in Finland. The forest industry owns about 10 percent and the state through Metsähallitus owns about 25 percent. The remaining five percent is mainly owned by municipalities and parishes. Over 80 percent of all forest land is PEFC certified.
Origin extends throughout the value chain
The purpose of PEFC forest certification is to ensure that wood comes from sustainably and responsibly managed forests. With over 30 requirements, the PEFC standard promotes sustainable forest management in a variety of ways, including through the use of buffer strips and mixed forest stands. Forest management is also audited by independent auditors.
“Another part of PEFC is the wood origin tracking system. In it, every actor in the supply chain, such as a sawmill or other wood processing facility, is audited annually. All actors in the certified value chain must also be able to prove the origin of the wood they use in their products.”
This Chain of Custody (CoC) system tracks the origin of wood throughout the entire supply chain, from the forest to the finished product.
Together, these should guarantee that a PEFC-labeled product has been produced responsibly and traceably throughout the entire value chain.
Endurance tested
The sustainability debate also causes friction – usually because economic and environmental interests clash. The needs of forest owners and the forest industry sometimes conflict with ecological and environmental requirements. There is also controversy about the amount of logging, as well as the methods of logging. The carbon sink debate is also heated.
Liimatainen points out that the currently lively sustainability debate has long roots.
“The discussion about sustainability started at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and its aftermath in the early 1990s.”
In the aftermath, PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) was also founded in 1999.
In the same year, an office was also opened in Finland.
PEFC was founded on the initiative of European forest owners and forestry operators to create an independent and credible forest certification system that would be better suited to small-scale, family-owned forestry than the FSC system, which focuses on larger forest areas and is more environmentally focused.
Today, PEFC is the world's largest forest certification scheme, certifying over 300 million hectares of forests in over 50 countries.
The sustainability debate that began a quarter of a century ago continues.
"The pace has certainly accelerated and diversified. The discussion is now taking place on a completely different scale than it was then. In particular, issues related to climate and biodiversity have emerged in a completely different way than before," Liimatainen points out.
New player in the warranty market
In addition to PEFC and FSC, a third player is entering the wood origin guarantee market. The certificate is called EverCover.
AEFC (The Association for Ecological Forestry Certification) was founded by continuing education associations and companies in Finland, Estonia and Sweden.
In practice, the point is that buyers of products know, based on the certificate, that the raw material does not come from clear-cutting.
According to Liimatainen, the introduction of a new certificate to the market is quite logical.
“As the sustainability and diversity debate rages, people are looking for different tools to tackle the challenges. So it’s no surprise.”
He also reminds us that continuous cultivation was allowed as a forest management measure in Finland with a legal amendment made in 2014. However, continuous cultivation has not gained much popularity among forest owners in the past ten years.
“At PEFC, we drive a holistic sustainable solution and emphasize local conditions. They vary greatly between countries and forest plots. EverCover takes a much narrower view of forest management. I would say that, for example, continuous cultivation on some peatland could be a good solution. However, I do not think it is suitable as a general guideline for forest management.”
