Talking to BC Foresters about SFI Certification

The 5,600 forest professionals in British Columbia had the opportunity to read about SFI certification and audits in the November/December issue of BC Forest Professional magazine.

The magazine featured third-party certification, and included articles by Chris Ridley-Thomas, who leads KPMG Performance Registrar Inc.'s forest certification practice, and Gerry Fraser, Interfor's Manager of Sustainable Forestry and a founding member of the Western Canada SFI Implementation Committee.

More than 40 percent of the more than 130 million acres/53 million hectares of certified forests in British Columbia are certified to the SFI standard. Most forest professionals in the province choose SFI or Canadian Standards Association Z809 certification – and since lands certified to CSA are recognized by SFI, this means products from 95 percent of British Columbia's certified lands are eligible to use the SFI chain-of-custody label.

In An SFI Audit: How it Works and What's Involved, Ridley-Thomas said the key factors that drive successful SFI audits are competent auditors, clear standards, reliable audit processes and transparent reporting.

In Interfor: 10 Years of SFI Certification, Fraser said Interfor chose to be certified to the SFI standard in 2000 for a number of reasons. "It meant we could integrate performance measures and objectives into the environmental management systems we had in place and SFI had broad recognition in the United States—our largest market."