American Forest Foundation Partners with FSC on Family Forestlands

The American Forest Foundation (AFF) is partnering with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC US) to support the implementation of the FSC US Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment.

The partnership’s goal is to help companies that source fiber from family forestlands to mitigate sustainability risks identified in the FSC Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment for a specific region, such as threats to High Conservation Values and forest conversion. AFF and FSC are also working together to monitor the impacts of these risk mitigation efforts on family-owned forests. To ensure close coordination on this effort, AFF has become a Member of FSC in the Social Chamber.

Family forests, which comprise almost 40% of US forests and provide more than 50% of the wood flowing into supply chains, are a principal source of FSC Controlled Wood. Over the last year, AFF has implemented a range of risk mitigation projects across the Southeast US, in partnership with a handful of FSC Certificate Holders that source Controlled Wood. The projects engage family landowners to protect and restore High Conservation Values, including native longleaf pine systems, late-successional bottomland hardwoods, and the habitat of the dusky gopher frog.

“The approach to risk mitigation developed by the American Forest Foundation offers great potential to expand the positive impacts delivered by the FSC Controlled Wood system,” said Corey Brinkema, president of the Forest Stewardship Council US. “Family forests are vital to both conservation and US markets, so we are excited to deepen our partnership with AFF.”

AFF is also partnering with FSC to monitor and evaluate the impact of the National Risk Assessment in the United States. FSC is implementing a unique approach to risk mitigation in the US, focusing on creating measurable change at a landscape scale through the collective mitigation activities of many FSC Chain of Custody Certificate Holders. Due to the intended scale of impact, individual Certificate Holders can’t measure the overall impact. Therefore, AFF and FSC are co-creating metrics and evaluation strategies to understand the collective impact and effectiveness of the mitigation.

To that end, AFF brings its deep knowledge of family woodlands and analytical expertise to support FSC’s system. Both organizations hope this partnership can serve as a model for promoting sustainability on family forests.

“We are excited to help family forest owners have an impact on important conservation issues identified under the FSC US Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment,” said Tom Martin, president and CEO of the American Forest Foundation. “We look forward to bringing deep expertise with family woodlands to our role as a partner and member of FSC.”
https://us.fsc.org/en-us/newsroom/newsletter/id/1178

Related Posts

Outside Voice: Mike Wallace, the Evolution of Sustainability Reporting

Our Outside Voice series highlights the perspectives of stakeholders and leaders on important sustainability topics, such as sustainability reporting. On the particulars, we may not always agree. But we believe in hearing and learning from others who offer valuable insights and a different point of view on issues that are important to us all. Mike Wallace, a partner at BrownFlynn, an ERM Group company, is an internationally recognized expert in sustainability with more than 20 years of experience advising corporations, nonprofits and government agencies on sustainability programs. He’s also interim executive director of the Social and Human Capital Coalition, a global collaboration that helps companies recognize, measure and value the importance of people and communities. Previously, he was a director at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Wallace recently spoke with our Outside Voice team about the evolution of sustainability reporting, new areas of interest for stakeholders and the benefits of transparency to both publicly traded and privately owned companies.

SCA praised for transparency in sustainability reporting

Sustainability was the second most prioritized section in this year’s Webranking and one in which SCA got the highest score in Sweden, receiving 87% of the maximum score (compared with last year’s 78%). In particular, respondents considered SCA to be most transparent about their sustainability work in their online channels highlighting the presentation of both environmental and social data, as well as clearly communicated targets and follow-up actions.That SCA now has a digital sustainability report, further increased our score. Results also showed that many companies still lag when it comes to sharing their sustainability information on the web. This year the goal achievement was 32%. click Read More below for additional detail

Forests and the Circular Economy: A future without plastics

You want to order online but hate the non-recyclable packaging material used in e-commerce in addition to cardboard? You are a restaurant owner and want to cut down on the dozens of Styrofoam boxes that your fish is delivered in every day? You are thinking of building a house but worry about the carbon emissions linked to using concrete and steel? It can seem difficult to find adequate alternatives for these seemingly ubiquitous, carbon-intensive materials, but alternatives do exist. Recyclable packaging and wood-based construction materials are already here and ready to be used on a much bigger scale. The exhibition Forests and the Circular Economy. A future without plastics, opened yesterday at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. It showcased some of the many renewable and sustainably sourced products that the forest sector can offer, providing solutions to global challenges as part of a circular economy.
Back To Top
×Close search
Search