Buying FSC products
This database will search for manufacturers and distributors so that you can find them in retail stores.
Happy shopping!
How the FSC Works
“The FSC is a membership organization governed by three chambers with equal vote and power. FSC Members equally represent social, environmental and economic interests, and are representative of the Global North and South.”
Certification
The FSC hires independent organizations to certify brands in order to remain unbiased. These organizations are called certification bodies. These certification bodies audit every brand at least once a year to make sure they meet all of the FSC’s principles and criteria for their certification.
Types of Certificates
After a brand receives these certifications they are allowed to print the FSC label on their products.
Illegal Timber
According the FSC, “Illegal logging takes place when there is a violation of laws on cutting, processing and transporting timber.”
They also claim that “in some countries as much as 80% of the timber is harvested illegally, often in violation of human rights and causing destruction of protected forests.”
Some general laws for timber industry include:
Illegal timber harvesting is the cause of many of the issues that I mentioned in my previous posts on this subject, and it also causes countries, especially developing countries, to lose out on the revenue from this industry.
The US Lacey Act
The law that prevents illegal logging in the United States is the US Lacey Act. It also bans illegal timber from the US market, though it defines illegal by the laws in the timber’s country of origin rather than US law.
Specifically, according to the FSC the US Lacey Act:
“makes it unlawful to trade in any plant that is taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of federal or state laws of the United States, laws of a Native American Tribe, or any foreign law that protects plants. It also make it unlawful to falsify of submit falsified documents, accounts or records of any plant covered by the Act. Agricultural crops are excluded from the Lacey Act Amendment, as are other plants.”
While a third party certification like the FSC’s is not required under the US Lacey Act it does help brands pass government inspections of product.
While the US Lacey Act helps sort out some illegal timber from exports it does not catch it all because, according to the FSC, “to have a truly positive impact, legislation needs to create incentives for the implementation of best practices in forestry. Best practices are well beyond legal requirements and ensure environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable forest management.”
Forests and the Environment
Why are forests important?
Forests are an extremely beautiful and unique part of Earth’s environment, but they also help regulate the world’s carbon by removing carbon dioxide from the air. Trees and plants then store carbon in their bodies. This is called carbon sequestering. Carbon dioxide is most often mentioned as a greenhouse gas that may be linked to global warming. Without these forests that carbon dioxide simply stays in the atmosphere, and when these forest’s are cleared they release the carbon they are storing into the atmosphere, thus releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere. According the FSC, deforestation releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than all of the world’s transportation.
According the FSC, “well-managed forests provide a wide range of social and economic benefits and environmental services, such as livelihoods for people and habitats for animals and plants.” The FSC provides a list of some of the other environmental benefits of forests and some of their social benefits.
Environmental Benefits (This list and the one that follows it are found on a fact sheet of the FSC retrieved from their website)
Social Benefits
FSC and other environmental activities
In 2009 The FSC precipitated in the UN climate conference in Copenhagen and they also established the Forest Carbon Working Group (FCWG) to further investigate and advice the FSC on the effects of deforestation on climate 
change, so that the FSC can continue to have up-to-date for the producers they certify.
Biodiversity and HCVF
According to the FSC, “forests only cover about 30% of the world’s surface, yet they are home to about half of terrestrial biodiversity and millions of the poorest people.”
High Conservation Value Forests
The FSC coined this term to refer to “forests of outstanding and critical importance.” “This could be due to the presence of endangered wildlife, or an unusually high number of rare plant species. Or it could be because the forest is of critical importance to local people because it provides them with food, water, income or sites of cultural significance.”
The FSC developed six specific definitions for HCVFs so that they can be accurately identified:
The FSC protects HCVFs by creating a contingency in all of their operations contracts that if they find these areas they must have a plan as to how to protect them.
Me at Devil's Lake Wisconsin
Forest Stewardship Council
Introduction to the FSC
Sorry you all these posts are going to be in quick succession so look for the others as well. I have had them done for awhile and was waiting on approval to post them.
What is the Forest Stewardship Council?
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was created in 1993 with the goal to promote the preservation of forests during the production of timber. It is a non-profit and non-governmental organization similar to Fair Trade. FSC uses a creative process to make it financially beneficial to producers to sell legal timber and protect the forests that provide their income. I will discuss this process more in a future post on ‘how the FSC works;’ but the FSC uses a certification system to show consumers and businesses that the products they are purchasing are made from legal timber, are not a result of deforestation, and support the protection of forests as well as the environment. The FSC certification builds a brand’s reputation and makes it able to trade in “highly environmentally sensitive markets;” some of these markets are whole governments and other organizations. In addition, according to the same FSC fact sheet, “the FSC has the only globally valid standard, it is also the only standard that is no barrier to trade under the World Trade Organization.”
FSC and Ethical Consumerism
According to an FSC fact sheet “the FSC label provides a credible link between responsible production and consumption, enabling the consumer to make socially and environmentally responsible purchasing decisions.” Each of these labels means that the producer followed each of the following ten principles:
According the FSC website, the FSC is the only certification system that deals with the forest and timber industry to receive the approval of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL) for “best-practice in standard setting.”
More facts and statistics
By 2010 the FSC certified over 120 million hectares (296,526,458 acres) of forests in 80 countries. This is equal to about 5%
Educated Consumerism 