FSC: What Is It and Why Does It Work?
by Brian J. Cowie, CEO, CTI Paper Group, Inc.

You've seen it listed on paper mill swatches. You've seen it in paper company press releases. FSC. What does FSC mean and why should you care?

FSC is the acronym for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Bonn Germany, the FSC has the leading wood fiber certification program, promoting environmentally and socially responsible management of the world's forests. The FSC evaluates both forest management activities (forest certification) and tracking of forest products (chain-of-custody certification). The FSC has certified between 8% and 10% of the world's harvestable forests, accounting for more than 180 million acres.

About the author: Brian J. Cowie is the CEO and founder of CTI Paper Group. He has spent the last 17 years developing paper grades, establishing paper brands and building global paper distribution for the group. Established in 1989, CTI Paper Group is an industry leader in paper design and distribution. The company is headquartered in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and has three divisions, CTI Paper USA, WorldWin Papers and The Paper Mill Store. In a previous career, Cowie was a general partner of a boutique money management firm, Hugo Securities and then he was self employed as an independent floor trader on both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.

"Sounds good, but what's in it for me?"

FSC certified paper is good for the environment and society at large, because certification protects forests and promotes social reforms. And, it's good for business. FSC certification rewards companies that use accepted forestry practices with certification that let's the consumer know that the products they're considering to purchase come from renewable and well-managed resources. Whether you're buying a guitar, bananas or paper and envelopes, you can look for the FSC certification logo. Sustainable resources are key to responsibly managing the environment as well as critical in securing long-term supplies of forest products and benefiting local economies. Well-managed forests are widely beneficial to everyone.

What makes this program so unique is that consumer groups, individual consumers and businesses can work together hand in hand to promote responsible use of the world's forests as a renewable and sustainable resource. The relationship that FSC has fostered between business and consumers is one of the best examples of how business can benefit from thoughtful and accurate presentation of environmental issues combined with actionable, reasonable and workable solutions to environmental challenges.

Together with the Rain Forest Alliance, the FSC promotes certification of forests and the distribution supply chain (through its "Chain of Custody" certification). The standards and list of required criteria for becoming FSC certified is centered on the principles of social issues, environmental issues and land use issues. You'll find more specific details by reading about the Forest Stewardship Council.

Here's the beautiful part

What FSC certification does in the long run is to add value to well-managed forests and the subsequent products produced from these forests; in our case paper. Now here's the really beautiful part of the equation. The added value of these certified forest products does not translate into the consumer paying more for FSC certified products. It actually translates into manufacturers having less cost because more demand is created for their products through the FSC certification process. You couldn't ask for a better economic incentive for both businesses and consumers.

Why FSC certification is a natural for the paper industry

Not only does the paper industry use a lot of wood fiber, making it a good candidate to support FSC certification practices, but the paper industry is already geared towards tracking all its sources of raw materials and finished goods from forest to consumer. It's likely that 97%+ of all commercial papers sold have this tracking mechanism attached to the packaging of cartons and reams. This means the needed software functions for tracking exactly where a paper comes from, what company made it, on which paper machine, when it was manufactured and with which raw materials is already in place in the large majority of paper companies today. The reason this tracking capability is already in place is because of the need for quality control and backtracking when quality issues are discovered post production. With this type of tracking software and procedures already in place, it makes great sense to utilize this capability for tracking fiber sources to ensure they come from FSC certified forests.

Why The Paper Mill Store is perfect for FSC certification

We are excited to announce that The Paper Mill Store, through our parent company, CTI Paper Group, Inc., is seeking FSC "Chain of Custody" (CoC) certification so that we can become an important link within the FSC certification fiber supply chain. If all goes as planned, we will achieve FSC CoC certification before the end of July 2006.

In the coming months, The Paper Mill Store will seek out and provide a growing collection of FSC certified paper and envelopes for you to choose from. This process will not diminish our current offering of paper and envelopes; it will expand our offering and help us to organize ourselves in such a way that enables you to easily support this important environmental initiative.

Please help us support FSC certified paper and envelopes

We ask that you participate in this cause and support The Paper Mill Store, our paper mills and our envelope converters in our efforts to increase the availability of FSC certified paper and envelopes by contacting us with your ideas and opinions and by purchasing FSC paper and envelopes on our web site. Please tell your friends and colleagues about FSC certification and The Paper Mill Store. Please contact Brian Cowie, C.E.O. of The Paper Mill Store, with your comments and questions.

See the difference an industry can make.