Triple Pundit -- ForestEthics Issues Scathing Review of SFI Practices

Excerpted from Triple Pundit:

ForestEthics has never minded punching above its weight.

The forest advocacy group is taking on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and it shouldn’t be a fair fight. After all, the SFI is the world’s largest forest certification standard, having certified more than 181 million acres of land. The group promises that it’s concerned with the most important issues of the day, including biodiversity, sustainability, and protecting water quality.

But ForestEthics isn’t impressed by SFI. They’ve released a new report called SFI: Certified Greenwash, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. According to ForestEthics, SFI is funded by the very timber companies that it purports to oversee, with the result that oversight is negligible. In an article in The Huffington Post, Todd Paglia, Executive Director at Forest Ethics, likens SFI to the snake oil salesmen that visitors saw at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

“Using the very same branding and marketing tools pioneered by the Rattlesnake King and his cronies, the SFI is peddling an environmental seal of approval with about as much credibility to protect forests as snake oil had to cure rheumatism,” writes Paglia.

He claims that the SFI has invented an “independent” eco-friendly, certified-green label for the timber industry that makes consumers feel good about their purchases, but it’s mostly greenwashing.

Read the full article here >>