PEFC continues work on expanding certified supply

With more public and corporate sustainable timber procurement policies in development, companies and organisations along the forest products supply chain need to collaborate to secure a sufficient supply of certified timber to meet rising demand.

The challenges of bringing certified material to the market are twofold. Firstly, there is a need for unbroken chain of custodies from forest gate to end user so companies along the supply chain need to get certified. Secondly, forest certification systems must work to expand the total area of certified forests, especially as recently reported growth in the global certified forest area is to some extent caused by dual certification (to FSC and PEFC), which does not increase the overall supply of certified material.

Our General Assembly, which was held earlier this month in Rio de Janeiro, provided PEFC with an opportunity to reflect on past achievements and look to the future. Over the past year, the total PEFC certified forest area has grown by 7%, or 15.8 million ha. This includes new certified areas in Malaysia, Belarus, Russia, UK and Estonia. With a total of about 230 million ha of certified forests globally, what is the future growth potential?

PEFC is poised to contribute to expanding supply over the coming years. It is investing resources in increasing the certified forest area in Russia, and two more countries can potentially contribute to the total supply if the ongoing assessments of the national forest certification systems in Uruguay and Latvia demonstrate compliance with PEFC’s Sustainability Benchmarks.

Furthermore, there are new member countries that may provide PEFC-certified material in the near future. Argentina has become the latest member of PEFC, with the General Assembly accepting its application at its recent meeting in Brazil. In addition, the China Forest Certification Council has expressed its intention to join the PEFC family; advising that it will submit a formal application in 2011.

PEFC continues to work on expanding overall certified forests area, and collaborates with all stakeholders to tackle the challenge of promoting chain of custody certification along the supply chain.

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