Four leaders of the North American publishing industry announced that they would partner with the North American-based PEFC member Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) to promote the growth of certification to preserve and protect forests. Source: Timberbiz
Time Inc., the National Geographic Society, Macmillan, and Pearson will become founding partners of the SFI Forest Partners Program.
The alliance was announced at the SFI annual conference in the US, which was attended by foresters, land owners, conservation groups, First Nations, industry and government agencies.
SFI Forest Partners allows market leaders to support certification, as well as landowners and manufacturers facilitate forest certification and the certified sourcing of forest products.
Partners will work collectively with the SFI community to make certification more efficient and accessible by providing resources for activities such as shared consulting expertise, group certification or audit coordination.
“SFI Forest Partners lets us have a direct impact on the growth of forest certification and the responsible sourcing of forest products,” said Guy Gleysteen, Senior Vice President of Production at Time Inc.
By the end of 2014, SFI Forest Partners aims to certify two million hectares of forests to the SFI 2010-2014 Standard, then by 2017 four million hectares of forest across the United States and Canada.
It will seek to certify increasing numbers of small and medium-sized mills to SFI certified sourcing or chain-of-custody certification.
