SFI—Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Chain of custody and labelling
Now more than ever, consumers are looking for assurances that the wood and paper products they choose are produced according to their expectations of environmental responsibility. To help companies meet this consumer demand, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative¨ (SFI) program has an integrated, verifiable chain of custody certification (CoC) that is comprehensive and thorough. It is a certification system that demonstrates to consumers a commitment to the responsible management of wood and paper products.
Having chain of custody certification means a company has a certified inventory control process in place to support claims made about the origin of fibre in a product. If the claim origin is a certified forest, then the CoC process tracks the wood or fibre on the path it takes from a certified forest to the end consumer. The scope of the CoC certification is comprehensive and required for all stages of custody: from the harvesting, processing and handling of materials to the manufacturing, transporting and retailing of products.
Chain of custody certifi cation is a demonstration that end products were originally sourced from sustainable, legal and well-managed forests. Materials were not illegally harvested from major tropical wilderness areas or detrimental to biodiversity hotspots. It is a demonstration that materials were properly processed, which includes how they were handled, stored, sorted, graded and manufactured. It is also a demonstration that certification claims were properly recorded and documented.
Becoming SFI CoC-Certified
For any company that processes or trades SFI certified forest products, such as wholesalers, printers, publishers or manufacturers of forest products, it is important to get the SFI chain of custody certification.
- Contact an SFI-accredited certifier. SFI requires third-party auditors to be accredited to conduct CoC certifications. This ensures the quality, independence and integrity of the audit is maintained.
- Submit an application to the certifier.
- Complete an on-site audit.
- Certification approval usually takes four to six weeks.
- Complete an annual audit to maintain certification.
Visit www.sfi program.org/certifiers.cfm for a complete list of SFI-accredited certifi ers.
SFI LABELS
The SFI labels are straight-forward and provide assurance to the companies that put them on their own products. There are two kinds of labels: Fibre Sourcing labels and Percent Content labels.
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
back to top 