What is the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program and what makes a paper/envelope SFI certified?
Kathy Abusow: The SFI® program is an internationally endorsed forest certification program and was launched in 1995 in response to market concerns about forest management and illegal logging. Today, we have an internationally recognized and science-based standard that sets requirements for how a forest should be managed. In order for forest companies to claim they are SFI-certified, their operations must be audited against that standard by independent, third-party certification bodies. Forest certification is often complemented with a chain-of-custody certification, which is a tool used to track wood from a certified forest all the way to the end-user, providing a link between the certified forest and the certified product. In the case of paper products, this chain of custody includes the forest, mill, distributor, printer, etc. For an end-user to claim a paper is SFI certified, this chain of custody must be maintained. That means buying an SFI-certified product from an SFI-certified d
