Forest Carbon Opportunity for FSC Certificate Holders

South Africa has become the latest country to achieve PEFC endorsement of its national forest certification system, which is great news for the country’s many small-forest owners. “We are excited and energized to receive PEFC endorsement of our national system,” said Craig Norris, Chairman of the South African Forestry Assurance Scheme (SAFAS). “We have been working for five years to find solutions that will make forest certification accessible to the many smaller scale forestry operations within our country.” Click read more below for additional detail.

Our customers want to feel good about shopping at Walmart, and they count on us to deliver access to products that are safe, healthier and affordable in a way that is sustainable. For more than 15 years, we’ve been collaborating with others to drive positive impact across global supply chains. We’re on a path to becoming a more regenerative company that works to restore, renew and replenish, in addition to conserving nature. Part of meeting that goal is found in how we treat the world’s forests. Healthy forests help sustain biodiversity, support livelihoods and play an important role in combatting climate change by naturally sequestering carbon dioxide. But deforestation continues to occur at an alarming rate. According to the World Resources Institute, we lost the equivalent of a soccer field of primary rainforest every six seconds in 2019. That’s why we continue to take a holistic approach to addressing deforestation – from certification and monitoring to sustainable sourcing, advocacy and more. Walmart is focused on key commodities that, according to the World Economic Forum, drive deforestation in tropical forests: palm oil, pulp and paper, timber, beef and soy. click read more below for the rest of the story

DS Smith in Gent already conducted a detailed review to the gas, water and electricity consumption in 2010. We concluded then that “Of all the sites, we were in the tail of the pack.", says Luc Arens, technical project coordinator at DS Smith. After that analysis, the company took a number of measures, such as placing high-efficiency boilers and installing LED lamps in the production halls. Today, in order to reduce total CO2 emissions by 30%, DS Smith in Gent aim to go a step ahead and has sought for a partner to further optimize the production and reduce the emissions of these processes. In the summer of 2019, an energy coaching program was set up together with the city of Ghent. This process began with a review of the processes used and provided an overview of the possible areas of improvement. By professionally measuring energy consumption at different stages in the processes, more targeted actions could be taken. In this way, the stealth consumption was addressed and the waste water was also recently collected by a specialized company.