ANSI APPROVAL GOOD NEWS FOR FOREST CERTIFICATION

This article was E-mailed to me from LBM Journal

From Sustainable Forestry Initiative

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -Contact: Karen Brandt, VP, Market Affairs
February 5, 2009                703 875-9500 ext 28

ANSI APPROVAL GOOD NEWS FOR FOREST CERTIFICATION

ARLINGTON, VA – The fact that the National Green Building Standard is the first green building rating system to be approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is good news for third-party forest certification, says Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of the independent Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®).
The development of the National Green Building Standard was a joint effort between the International Code Council (ICC) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The standard, referred to as ICC 700-2008, applies to all residential construction work in the United States, including single-family homes, apartments and condos. It gives credits for wood and wood-based materials and products certified to all credible third-party forest certification programs, including the SFI program.
“The consensus committee understands the value of an open approach to certification when the demand for green building is increasing and only 10 percent of the world’s forests are certified,” Abusow said today. “The ANSI approval confirms that the standard was developed through a consensus-based process adhering to rigorous requirements for balance, openness, and due process.”
In 2008, the Maine SFI Implementation Committee teamed up with Habitat for Humanity and Bank of America to build a home in Portland, Maine, that will be the first Habitat home certified to the National Green Building Standard. The project involves SFI volunteers and resources donated by SFI program participants.
“I work with architects and builders who are always looking for practical approaches to sustainable building,” said Rob Worthington, SFI Director, Green Building. “They appreciate having a choice, and prefer green building rating systems that recognize multiple forest certification standards. ANSI’s approval of this standard shows it is possible to be inclusive and still be credible.”
The internationally recognized, non-profit SFI program is one of the largest and fastest-growing forest certification programs in the world, with 154 million acres (62 million hectares) of certified lands in the United States and Canada. To be certified, forest operations must be audited against the SFI 2005-2009 Standard, which is based on principles that promote sustainable forest management, including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk, and forests with exceptional conservation value.
Certification bodies conducting audits to the SFI Chain-of-Custody Standard must be successfully accredited by ANSI (or the Standards Council of Canada in Canada) to perform these audits, which make the link between the SFI-labeled product and the certified forest.
ANSI approval of the National Green Building Standard followed a stringent process involving an inclusive and representative consensus committee made up of builders, architects, product manufacturers, regulators and environmental experts. The committee deliberated the content of the standard for more than a year, held four public hearings and evaluated more than 2,000 comments. The new standard provides guidelines for residential designers and builders to address issues such as water conservation, material use, energy efficiency, indoor air quality and homeowner education in the homes they build.
About SFI Inc.
SFI Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit charitable organization, and is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program (www.sfiprogram.org), that is internationally recognized and among the largest in the world. It is one of the fastest-growing forest certification programs with 154 million acres (62 million hectares) of SFI-certified forests across North America. The SFI Standard also includes unique fiber sourcing requirements that promote responsible forest management on all suppliers’ lands and a chain-of-custody certification, which can communicate to buyers how much certified fiber is in a specific product. The SFI forest standard is endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, a global umbrella organization that has strict requirements for endorsement. SFI Inc. is governed by a three-chamber board of directors representing environmental, social and economic sectors equally.