“More than 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty are dependent on forests for some part of their livelihoods.” THE WORLD BANK
STR /A FP/G E T T Y IM AG ES
WOOD
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rofessional architects, designers and specifiers are no strangers to special requests from their clients. When it comes to wood, a common specification is that it be certified under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC certification label represents a declaration that in addition to being legal and sustainable, the company has met certain social requirements during harvest and production. As much as you want to fulfill your client’s expectations and provide FSC certified wood, sometimes you cannot. It just may be impossible to find FSC in the quantity, size specifications or grade that you need. In the past, your options may have been limited to substituting another material. Tile flooring instead of jatoba or oak. Slate shingles instead of wallaba or cedar. Composite plastic decking instead of ipé or redwood. These are probably not your preferences, but how do you go green with wood without FSC? Many professionals face that dilemma. If you or your clients want certified, looking beyond FSC to the many options in the marketplace is the answer. Thankfully, more and more country-specific certification programs are available as FSC equivalents. Why the growth and acceptance of national programs? Although FSC has been viewed by many architects and environmental groups as the “gold standard,” supply of FSC wood has never been able to meet demand. FSC certification is an expensive and complicated process. The FSC certification of many forests in developing tropical countries is underwritten by foreign aid, grants or other types of subsidies. Even so, only 5% of the world’s forests are certified and the bulk of them are not in the tropics. For example, when you compare FSC-provided statistics against the United Nations Foreign Agricultural Service forest cover database, only 1.2% of Africa’s forests are certified by FSC, with South America and the Caribbean holding about 1.5%. Yet these same regions have developed strong sustainable forestry initiatives on their own. 56
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