Rainforest Alliance has asked NEPCon to take over the management of its SmartWood Program in 14 additional European countries.
Henceforth, NEPCon is the official SmartWood representative in almost 30 countries, providing services to companies certified or verified by the Rainforest Alliance.
The Rainforest Alliance office in Madrid, Spain, is continuing to lead SW servicing in Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK and four other countries, and Rainforest Alliance and NEPCon are ensuring tighter coordination throughout Europe than ever before.
Improved services to SmartWood clients
NEPCon’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Feilberg, comments: “Together with the Rainforest Alliance, we are exploring the best approach to ensure a well-coordinated implementation of the SmartWood Program in Europe. This effort involves re-structuring the organizational set-up to reflect the existing business flow among specific countries".
"Now it is becoming clear that there are very good market linkage opportunities between FSC-certified companies in the countries we’ve already managed on behalf of SmartWood for years, and companies in some other European countries – for instance between Poland and countries such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. By coordinating SmartWood activities in all of those countries, it has become easier for us to provide even better service and added value to our existing clients as well as to those in the new countries”.
Focus on local-language service
Feilberg explains that NEPCon is the only partner in the Rainforest Alliance network working in a multi-language setting. “This is a decisive competitive factor in Europe, and our goal is to communicate as much as possible in the local language, verbally and in written. For example, we produce a tri-lingual newsletter – in English, Polish, and Russian – and our website is so far available in 8 languages”, he says.
"In addition to the key role the organization has as a certifier within FSC forest and wood industry certification, the Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM Seal is also increasingly recognized in Europe as a credible signature of responsibly produced tropical agriculture products, such as coffee and bananas. We have a long-term history of successful collaboration with Rainforest Alliance, and we’re thrilled to be invited to take more responsibility for the SmartWood Program”. Richard Donovan, Chief of Forestry at RA, comments: “We at Rainforest Alliance are really excited by the opportunities we see working even more closely with NEPCon – for 10 years this has been a great relationship, and frankly there are no limits to what we can do together”.
New NEPCon staff in Germany
As part of the transfer, NEPCon welcomes a new staff member: Ulrich Müller, who is based in Germany. Since 2003, Müller has been representative of the SmartWood Program in Austria, Benelux, Germany and Switzerland. He has carried out more than 200 COC audits and some FM according to the FSC standards, and is also qualified as a PEFC auditor.
About the SmartWood program
The SmartWood program is a comprehensive certification program developed by the Rainforest Alliance for credible certification and verification of forest operations and wood industries, including FSC certification and other verification services such as SmartLogging, SmartSourcing and Legal Verification schemes.
Here's a few of the reasons why so many operations and companies choose to get involved with the SmartWood program:
- Rainforest Alliance, one of the founders of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), is the world's largest FSC forestlands certifier.
- The Rainforest Alliance SmartWood program offers an extremely broad range of expertise, with around2,800 clients in over 60 countries, in all forest types and for all types of businesses.
- More forest management operations are certified under the SmartWood Program than any other FSC certifier (almost 40 percent of the worldwide total).
- Higher quality means fewer problems. No FSC/Rainforest Alliance certificate has ever been overturned by the FSC -- an unparalleled track record.
- You earn the right to use the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal in public information, in addition to the FSC trademarks. Certificate holders who work with the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program are able to use both the FSC trademark and the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal.
- The Rainforest Alliance Certified seal is found globally, in over 20,000 outlets, and is seen by consumers as a trusted guarantee of excellent environmental and social practices.