Overview: What’s Wrong With the SFI?
Environmentally Destructive Logging
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certifies forests in the U.S. and Canada despite ecologically damaging and business-as-usual logging practices.
Harmful practices allowed by the SFI and/or used by SFI certified companies include:
- Widespread logging of irreplaceable old growth forests, roadless areas, and other endangered forests.
- Reduction of natural forests to industrial tree plantations lacking biological diversity.
- Logging, road construction, and other operations that harm water quality, including in states that lack adequate “best management practices.”
- Destruction of natural forests for replacement by ecologically degraded industrial tree plantations.
- Permanent conversion of forests to sprawl and other non-forest land uses.
- Excessive, routine use of toxic chemicals across entire landscapes.
- Excessive clearcutting, with entire landscapes allowed to be logged in very short time periods by multiple cuts each as large as 116 soccer fields.
- Use of genetically modified trees.
The SFI also:
- Does not adequately protect the rights of workers, communities, and indigenous peoples.
- Does not require adequate verification of companies’ compliance with relevant laws and policies.
- Does not require adequate consultation with stakeholders and experts during assessments.
Misleading Marketing
The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) created the SFI to market U.S. timber companies’ business-as-usual logging practices as being “sustainable.” The AF&PA, SFI, and some timber companies also use ads and other media to mis-represent ecologically-harmful logging as being environmentally responsible. Consumers may also be mislead if they assume the SFI’s new “recovered fiber” label ensures recycled and especially post-consumer recycled content.
SFI Labeled But Not SFI Certified
There’s also no guarantee that products marketed as SFI have any connection to SFI certified forests. As much as 100% of the wood and fiber in any SFI labeled product can come from forests that are not SFI certified. And as much as 100% of the content of products bearing the SFI “fiber sourcing” label can come from virtually any forest, regardless of how controversial or poorly managed it is. The SFI’s new chain of custody rules do not clearly verify the geographic origins of wood and fiber, do not verify the accuracy of suppliers’ documentation, and are not even required for the fiber sourcing label. The SFI’s chain of custody and fiber procurement rules also ignore most types of illegal logging, and provide virtually no assurances regarding the non-“certified” content of SFI labeled products. [Label and COC analysis]
Follow the Money: Dominated by Timber Interests
The SFI also lacks independence and balance in its governance. The SFI’s standards were originally developed by the wood products industry and forest landowners, i.e., the AF&PA. The SFI is funded primarily by AF&PA members and other timber companies it certifies. Timber companies and industry allies also continue to dominate the SFI’s governing board, which controls the SFI standards and other aspects of the system. The board’s original members were hand-picked by the AF&PA, and subsequent members are chosen by these appointees. Some board members also accept large payments from SFI certified companies. The AF&PA’s anti-environmental track record also includes lobbying to weaken protections for endangered species and National Forests.