Greenwash Claims Flushed Away, The BBC vs Serious Tissues

At our 24th General Assembly at the heart of this year’s PEFC Forest Certification Week, we welcomed our 52nd and 53rd national members. The General Assembly, our highest decision making body, voted Ukraine and Guyana into the alliance. “Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe, and 15.6% of land is covered by forests. That is 10.4 million hectares,” said Mariya Maha from the Association National Voluntary Forest Certification System, our new national member for Ukraine. Our second new member, the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), is leading the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), a trade agreement between Guyana and the European Union. The collaboration between PEFC and local stakeholders in Guyana began in 2015, supported by the PEFC Collaboration Fund.

The Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) has certified Crown Holdings, Inc. against the ASI Performance Standard for responsible production, sourcing and stewardship of aluminum with a focus on material stewardship. The Standard, which assesses and confirms the ethicality of metal packaging production activities within Crown’s Brazil operations, advances the Company’s progress within its Twentyby30 sustainability program and supports its customers in their own responsible sourcing goals. As a not-for-profit standards setting and certification organization, ASI works to define environmental, social and governance principles and criteria, with the aim to address sustainability issues in the aluminum value chain. In addition to creating a benchmark for the industry, the organization’s efforts around the ASI Performance Standard include: establishing requirements that can be independently audited to provide objective evidence for the granting of ASI Certification; reinforcing and promoting consumer and stakeholder confidence in aluminum; and serving as a broader reference for the establishment and improvement of responsible production, sourcing and material stewardship initiatives in metals supply chains. Utilizing these measures, ASI’s ultimate mission is to recognize and collaboratively foster responsible production, sourcing and stewardship of aluminum.

We are pleased to announce that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the American Forest Foundation (AFF) have formed a new partnership to grow the amount of certified family and other small holdings in North America. Through this partnership, SFI and AFF are working together on a Small Lands Group Certification Module (Module), an innovative way to grow certified family lands and small holdings by building on the foundation of SFI's Fiber Sourcing Standard, and drawing on the strengths of the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) forest management standard. Under this Small Lands Module, companies certified to the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard will be able to form a new type of certification group to certify small lands within their wood and fiber supply area. Click read more below for additional detail.