“Week long courses in Forest and Wood Science tailored for the forest products industry”
Invited by the Gottstein Trust to present as part of the 2019 Forest Science course, Responsible Wood CEO, Simon Dorries, reiterated the importance of forest certification in verifying the origin of forest products and demonstrating timber legality.
“Responsible Wood in Australia, and PEFC throughout the globe, are both important in demonstrating the sustainable origin of timber, in the forest, meet baseline environmental and social benchmarks.”
Simon Dorries – the power of Chain of Custody
“Both are ‘trust marks,’ both can be used by the forest products industry to demonstrate compliance to illegal logging legislation, both in Australia and abroad,” Mr Dorries said.
For many in the forest products industry, forest certification is all about ‘Chain of Custody’ verification.
“Responsible Wood is Australia’s largest forest certification scheme with more than 11.5 million hectares of forest covered under its Sustainable Forest Management certification scheme. Through international recognition and mutual endorsement, Responsible Wood certification provides businesses with access to global markets through the PEFC network.”
Globally, more than 309 million hectares of forests is certified by PEFC, representing more than 65% of all forests certified worldwide.
“Chain of Custody allows processors, manufacturers, merchants and retailers to continue the link along the forest products supply chain; allowing businesses to make a Responsible Wood or PEFC claim on the product.”
“As it stands more than 250 Australian businesses participate in the Responsible Wood Chain of Custody scheme, and globally, more than 20,000 individual companies participate in the PEFC Chain of Custody scheme,” Mr Dorries said.
In order to participate in the Responsible Wood certification scheme, scheme holders are accredited by independent certification bodies to ensure they meet the Australian Standard for Sustainable Forest Management and Chain of Custody for Forest Products.
“Meeting the endorsed Australian Standard for Sustainable Forest Management and Chain of Custody, scheme holders are subject to an extensive audit process,” Mr Dorries said.
For more information about Responsible Wood Sustainable Forest Management, Chain of Custody for Forest Products or Responsible Wood certification more generally please contact Responsible Wood or visit the Responsible Wood website.
