Dear Umbra,

Our office is trying to develop an environmental paper procurement policy, and we were wondering which component is most critical -- certification by the Forest Stewardship Council, or recycled content? If you could help us understand which is best to support, we would greatly appreciate it.

Dan S.
Denver, Colo.

Dearest Dan,

We need to pause and celebrate: 15 years ago, was it even possible for this question to be written? Could an office worker casually toss off "environmental paper procurement policy" and know that it would be generally understood? And were there two eco-positive, decent paper choices to baffle us? I was still in diapers, of course, but I think not. To ice the cake, I think the answer is "both."

A new sheaf on life?

Paper with recycled content performs multiple environmental purposes. To begin with, the recycling process takes waste paper -- both from paper processing (pre-consumer) and from recycling bins (post-consumer) -- and diverts it from the general waste stream. Instead of getting dumped in landfills or incinerators (hello, pollution!) it gets transformed into new products. Recycled paper eases the pressure on forests and related ecosystems. Paper made even in part from reclaimed pulp uses less total energy than virgin (unused) paper, and generates fewer air and water pollutants [PDF].

You knew all that, of course, but I think it's helpful to spell it out again, because looking at the benefits helps us see the forest for the, um, trees. (OK, I had to say it. I had to. Even if it doesn't quite make sense.) Recycled content paper is not only beneficial to those trees, but it also helps reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions created when paper decays in landfills. One drawback to recycled paper, however, is the lack of oversight on the system. I'm not saying there's cheating -- I'm just suggesting I could print out the recycled logo and put it on my car and no one would write me a ticket.

The Forest Stewardship Council, for its part, is a respected independent NGO that sets standards and carries out certifications to assure that forests and forest products are managed responsibly. The FSC certification criteria include human rights considerations, habitat protections, and prohibitions on the use of dangerous chemicals, among many other points. The FSC is a lovely outcome of the environmental movement, and there are a lot of FSC-certified products on the market, from chairs to paper. But even if paper comes from a sustainably-managed forest -- and even if a certified "chain of custody" guarantees good works all along the way -- making that paper still involves using new trees, lots of energy, and more pollution than we'd like.

Unless ... the paper is both FSC-certified and recycled. Yes, we can get the best of both worlds. The FSC has three labels: 100 percent, recycled, and mixed sources. The 100 percent label indicates that all involved forests are FSC-certified (handy when buying lumber and lumber products). The mixed label indicates a blend of wood fibers from recycled material, FSC-certified forests, and "controlled sources" [PDF], involving forests with certain less stringent guidelines than the FSC-certified variety.

I'll go out on a (sorry) limb here and suggest FSC recycled paper as your best bet. At least 85 percent of the wood in this paper is post-consumer and at most 15 percent is pre-consumer. Just as in cholesterol tests, one number should be high and the other should be low; the FSC has them in the right proportions. This kind of paper is widely available in stores, and one can search the FSC website for products, too.

As I was looking around on your behalf, meanwhile, I found a few interesting resources that might be helpful for green ream seekers such as yourself. The Environmental Defense Fund and friends ran a Paper Task Force a few years back and one result was a "paper calculator" that shows the comparative impact of various levels of recycled content -- I thought it might be useful in procurement meetings. The Green Guide offers a nice wrap-up on paper issues, including non-tree paper (made from hemp, cotton, kenaf, and other plants) and recommended eco-brands, and so does the Ethical Consumer.

As you weigh these matters, I will further celebrate the evolution of our environmental situation by assuming we all know the basic first step in paper use improvement, and hardly mention what that aforesaid first step might be.

Reduce-ly,
Umbra

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If you've got plans to undertake a woodworking project -- building a deck, say, or a fancy new china cabinet -- you're probably not going to figure a plane ticket to Burma or Humboldt County, Calif., into the budget, even if you'd like to be sure that the wood you'll use has been harvested sustainably. Hence, the rise of green labeling: a convenient way for consumers to put their money where their values are.

But can you trust a label just because it says "sustainable" and sports a fetching graphic of a tree? Where the timber industry's "Sustainable Forestry Initiative" is concerned, many environmental activists say, it's caveat emptor.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative was developed in 1994 by the American Forest & Paper Association, the largest timber lobby in the world, as an industry program to boost environmental performance. While some environmentalists say the organization offers a framework to help industry improve, Michael Brune, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, calls the SFI "a new green coat of paint over the same tired practices." In November 2003, RAN and a coalition of environmental partners began a campaign called "Don't Buy SFI" to enhance public awareness about what they call industry-sponsored greenwashing.

If SFI has existed as an organization for 10 years, why are environmentalists particularly concerned right now? Because last year the group launched a new "green" product label -- and backed it with a massive, multi-million dollar marketing campaign featuring full-page advertisements in The Wall Street Journal and spots on National Public Radio, among other outlets. This push, says RAN Old-Growth Campaign Director Jennifer Krill, constitutes "strategic deception. Everything about the SFI, at its core, is misleading."

Charging that the program doesn't protect forests and ignores crucial social issues, the anti-SFI coalition, which includes such groups as ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, American Lands Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, has produced a website with a photo gallery of lands devastated by logging. Sobering shots of clearcuts are nothing new -- but the sites in these images were harvested by SFI-certified companies that qualify for the new eco-label.

"[Promoting this label] is a reflection of the logging industry in deep denial," says Brune. "They're hearing a consistent message from their customers, their shareholders, and the public at large that the status quo is unacceptable -- yet they're proceeding on course as if nothing has changed."

SFI: Same Forestry Industry?

The anti-SFI coalition considers the program's certification system inferior to one operated by the Forest Stewardship Council. FSC, an independent initiative founded by forestry professionals, environmentalists, indigenous groups, and sociologists in 1993, is "miles ahead" of its industry-backed competitor, according to Brune.

Certainly, the standards differ in several critical ways:

Moreover, says Hall of American Lands, any system is only as credible as its lowest common denominator -- and "if you look at the companies that follow the minimum standards SFI allows, you're talking about some of the worst forest and paper product companies on the continent."

A Sierra Pacific Industries clearcut in
California.

Photo: Central Sierra Environmental
Resources Center.

Sierra Pacific Industries -- which is certified by SFI but not by FSC -- clearly demonstrates the difference between the two labeling models, Hall contends. The company benefits from SFI's lack of forest-diversity standards, Hall says, "because Sierra Pacific is converting 70 percent of their 1.4 million acres of California forests to these ecologically impoverished pine plantations." The firm has also come under major criticism in the past for its clearcutting practices.

Consumers buying green-labeled products generally assume that the product has been tracked from the chainsaw to the shelf -- a process called "chain of custody" tracking. But companies can qualify for the SFI label without knowing where the vast majority of their wood products originate, Brune says, which undermines the credibility of the label.

The SFI label's certification process applies only to particular mills, not to specific companies or products. Thus if you go to your local lumberyard looking for a two-by-four, you might see one with SFI's "certified participant" label -- but that label doesn't necessarily mean that the board came from a certified logging operation. It means that the mill where the board was produced meets SFI's loose and often voluntary standards.

In fact, it's technically possible that none of the wood bearing the SFI label is harvested in a way compatible with SFI standards. To earn the label, mills that are primary wood producers are required to obtain one-third of their wood from suppliers that are either enrolled in the SFI program or meet guidelines set by the American Tree Farm System, which "make SFI standards look rigorous," says Hall. Two-thirds of the wood doesn't have to meet any standards at all.

"If you don't know where the wood is coming from, how do you know that it was logged responsibly?" says Brune. "It's a farce."

SFI critics acknowledge that the organization has made some strides. It has moved toward independence from the timber industry by creating a separate "Sustainable Forestry Board" to provide standards input and has improved third-party verification of company practices. And, the new board says, social concerns such as labor rights and indigenous people's rights will be considered when SFI revises its standards in 2005.

Building momentum.

Laurie Wayburn, president of the nonprofit Pacific Forest Trust, an organization focused on preserving and enhancing private forestland, is one of five conservation-organization representatives on the 15-member Sustainable Forestry Board. She has also worked with FSC from the group's beginning. "[W]e need many different answers to stop [the deforestation] trend, and joining the [SFI board] is an opportunity to work with some of the key owners of forestland in the country," she says.

Paul Portney, another member of the Sustainable Forestry Board and president of the natural-resources think tank Resources for the Future, concurs. "The board has been able to move the industry along at a much more rapid clip on issues related to sustainability than likely would have been the case if SFI had not been launched and [the Sustainable Forestry Board] had not been created," he says. Despite their opposition to the labeling program, some environmental critics of SFI agree on that score.

Bill Banzhaf, president of the board, says that FSC and SFI "have different strengths" as labeling programs. "FSC is very strong on chain of custody," Banzhaf allows. But, he contends, "they can't cover the breadth of forest that SFI can."

Of course not, counters Hall: "There's a reason why SFI has such broad participation in their system: They took a look at what people were already doing, and said, 'That's what we're going to certify.'"

Likewise, RAN's Krill blasts the program's entire standards document as "meaningless," noting that most of its "core indicators" merely require compliance with existing U.S. federal law. "After looking at the document, I came to the conclusion that this is the most sophisticated ... greenwashing program in America's history," she says. "There is nothing in this program that ensures forest protection ... There's nothing in this label or in this program that a consumer can trust."

Marks of ForestEthics agrees. Asked if SFI has a role to play in an ecologically sound future, she responds thusly: "You can't stop corporations from getting together and plotting and scheming, and that's what SFI is. That's the role they play. It interferes with our efforts. It just gets in the way."

While prominent retailers aren't yet leaping to embrace the SFI label, environmentalists fear that the current marketing offensive combined with intensive industry lobbying will build support among institutional customers. Corporations, says Brune, should pay heed to an age-old maxim: The customer is always right -- "and customers overwhelmingly want old growth protected," he says.

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