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Seven major brands move away from SFI
6 April 2011
Long-term campaigning by ForestEthics against the US forestry scheme Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) has taken effect: sold on the arguments, seven high brand companies are now pledging to move away from using the SFI scheme to demonstrate their sustainability commitments.
ForestEthics has announced that Aetna, Garnet Hill and Performance Bicycles will phase out their use of the SFI logo on various marketing materials or catalogues. Allstate will shift all office paper at its facilities from SFI- to FSC-certified. United Stationers have expressed their commitment to using FSC as its benchmark for acceptable forest certification in procurement and marketing. Office Depot will phase-out use of the SFI logo on Office Depot brand papers. And Symantec has published a statement, removed SFI language from its website and is committed to integrate this position into internal practices for paper marketing materials and packaging.
“This move by these brand companies to align themselves with credible certification programs, like FSC, echoes other of the world’s leading companies including those participating in our Rainforest Alliance SmartSource Program,” says Keri Hess, SmartSource Coordinator.
Campaign against SFI ‘greenwashing’
This development is the latest chapter in the ongoing battle between supporters of the two major US forest certification schemes, FSC and SFI.
In early March 2010, several Fortune 500 companies received a letter from ForestEthics warning them that they might find themselves in the greenwashing league if they chose SFI for green marketing purposes. This initiative was followed by the release of the report SFI: Certified Greenwash, published in November 2010.
 The report lays out the reasons why ForestEthics finds the SFI label "phony". It reviews SFI’s claims to credibility and refutes them one by one.
The report questions the independence of the SFI scheme; the rigorousness of the auditing; the SFI’s chain of custody system and in particular it’s "fiber sourcing label"; and the forest management performance guaranteed by the standard.
“Every company that uses the SFI label on its products either knowingly or unknowingly perpetuates SFI’s deceptive practices and the environmental harm that the label greenwashes”, warns the report.
‘Dangerously relaxed’
ForestEthics finds the connections between the SFI board of directors and major forest industries too close to warrant the organisation’s non-profit charity status. The report includes detailed analysis and graphic representation of the numerous alleged connections.
As for SFI’s claims to “rigorous, third-party audits”, ForestEthics maintains that SFI’s audits are “dangerously relaxed”. In particular, there are very few examples of major non-compliances being discovered by the SFI’s auditing teams: “Just one, out of 534 audits in six years, required attention to a problem that one would reasonably expect a real forest watchdog to fix - the wildlife-related non-compliance”. According to the report, the SFI auditors had identified no major non-compliance issues related to soil erosion, clearcutting, watershed issues, or chemical usage during any of the 543 audits.
SFI strikes back
On its website, SFI defends itself and counters ForestEthics’ “misleading, outdated information” under the theme “setting the record straight”. Responding to the doubts raised about its non-profit status, SFI highlights its members’ financial investment into forest research and community programs.
SFI also accuses ForestEthics of manipulating its message: “The 'poster child' for the ForestEthics anti-SFI campaign is a landslide which was the result of a once-in-500-years record rainfall in Washington State in 2007. The landslide had nothing to do with the SFI standard, and could have happened on any land – certified or not”.
 ForestEthics has subsequently launched a counter-attack on its website under the theme re-straightening the record. Responding to SFI’s claim to independence, ForestEthics contends that “SFI is being influenced by more than 100 direct and indirect relationships between the paper and timber industries and SFI’s board. SFI is being controlled by this industry web of influence”. It also maintains that the 2007 landslide is likely to have been the result of SFI-certified forest mismanagement rather than a random natural disaster.
SFI under public scrutiny
Perhaps ongoing investigations by the US public authorities will help seal the debate. In the fall of 2009, ForestEthics filed formal complaints against the SFI with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) alleging that SFI misleads the public through deceptive marketing and operates as a non-profit charity even though it primarily serves private for profit interests. The organisation asked the FTC to investigate and take steps to prevent SFI from competing “unfairly and deceptively”. The IRS was asked to investigate whether SFI is entitled to its status as a non-profit charity.
Aaron Sanger, US Campaign Director of ForestEthics, informs that the FTC is still investigating the complaints. “They are taking it seriously and our lawyer recently met with FTC representatives”. Mr. Sanger explains that due to legal confidentiality requirements, the IRS is not able to disclose any information about its investigation or its results, or even on the fact that the investigation has been concluded. “We filed the complaint with IRS because in our view, SFI is more similar to a trade association than to a non-profit charity. The original complaint as well as additional information provided has been acknowledged by IRS; but we do not know where the IRS complaint stands right now”.
One way ForestEthics can gauge the success of its complaint is to see whether SFI changes status from non-profit to for-profit in the public registers. “Another indication for success would be heightened public scrutiny of SFI’s ties to for-profit industry. The IRS is keeping its actions confidential, but we are not keeping our IRS complaint confidential. It is on our website. We have sent it out to a large number of companies. In this way, our IRS complaint also calls upon the ‘court of public opinion’ to take its own action against SFI”, states Mr. Sanger.
Read ForestEthics' press release
Read Symantec's press release
Related stories:
Certification showndown in the US (31/3 2010)
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