PEFC celebrates impressive increases in certified hectares

This year saw our members smash through past records for new PEFC-certified hectares!

In Australia alone, more than 16 million hectares of forest became PEFC-certified – an achievement that won Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) the top prize for growth during our PEFC Forest Certification Week award ceremony.

“I am both ecstatic and delighted to have received this award today,” said Simon Dorries, National Secretary of AFS. “These new hectares are in fact from just one certificate holder, bringing over 16 million hectares of additional forest within Australia.”

“What is really interesting is their motivation to gain PEFC certification – to demonstrate responsible land management to society, not simply the ability of produce certified wood for the market. This shows the great flexibility and multi-faceted nature of the PEFC system to be able to deliver such outcomes.”

Second and third place did not do badly either, with Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and PEFC Russia adding 8.2 million and 8.1 million hectares of certified forest, respectively – an amount that in previous years would have easily given them first place!

“It is fantastic to see such brilliant growth this year,” said Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC International, following the certificate awards ceremony. “As the world’s leading forest certification system, with 300 million hectares of forest certified to PEFC, we normally experience more steady growth, with any large increases due to newly-endorsed members.”

“This year was different, with all three of the winning countries in fact being long-established members. This shows the true strength and dedication of our organization: we never stand still, all of us throughout the PEFC alliance are constantly striving to do better, to reach more people, and get more forests managed sustainably.”

We also award the top three members to grow their Chain of Custody certificates.

This year the honor went to PEFC Germany, which added 91 Chain of Custody certificates. In second place came PEFC Spain and China Forest Certification Council (CFCC) in third.
http://pefc.org/news-a-media/general-sfm-news/2289-pefc-celebrates-impressive-increases-in-certified-hectares

Related Posts

Forest certfication system of Australia and New Zealand submitted for assessment

The Responsible Wood Forest Certification System has been submitted to PEFC for assessment. The public consultation, which is your chance to give your feedback on this revised system, will run from 28 February to 28 April 2022. Responsible Wood revised the national forest certification system for Australia and New Zealand following the entry into force of the revised 2018 PEFC Sustainable Forest Management standard.

O-I’s Containers Achieve Cradle to Cradle Certification

Owens-Illinois, Inc. is the first food and beverage packaging company to achieve a gold rating in material health on the Cradle to Cradle Product Scorecard. The Cradle to Cradle Certified(TM) Products Program is one of the premier sustainability certifications for products around the world and across industries. "The certification provides brand owners, consumers, regulators, and shareholders tangible validation of our company's ongoing commitment to sustainability," said Jim Nordmeyer, VP, Global Sustainability at O-I. "It's an important baseline and helps us identify next steps to improve our environmental and social performance." Nearly 90 percent of O-I's glass operations were certified across product categories and for certain container colors in the beer, non-alcoholic beverage (NAB), spirit, wine and food markets. The certification is based on five categories: material health, material reutilization, water stewardship, renewable energy use, and social fairness. Click Read More below for additional information.

Kotkamills to continue as KooKoo’s main partner in making plastic-free game events a reality

Kotkamills will continue as the main partner of the KooKoo ice hockey team also in the next league season. The partners have agreed to exercise the agreement’s option year for 2021–2022. KooKoo is pursuing a completely plastic-free game event, and the agreement means a big step closer to realising that goal. One of the big social responsibility targets of the collaboration that started between KooKoo and Kotkamills in 2019 is to make the Finnish ice hockey elite league, Liiga, games played at Lumon Arena plastic-free. “When we started the partnership with Kotkamills, our ambitious goal was to be the first sports club to develop our operations so that one day we can have a completely plastic-free game event and together show our strength in building social responsibility,” says KooKoo’s Managing Director Sakari Välimaa.
Back To Top
×Close search
Search