PEFC Week Brings International Partners Together to Address Sustainable Forestry

Dec 16 2015

SFIPromoting sustainable forest management and having it recognized and rewarded in the supply chain from the local to the global level is a key priority shared by the many delegates who attended the 2015 PEFC Forest Certification Week last week in Montreux, Switzerland.

Ben Gunneberg, PEFC International’s CEO and Secretary General, opened the 20th PEFC General Assembly with an empowering video and noted, “As a grassroots organization PEFC has an extremely important role to play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as we can deliver 14 of the 17 UN goals on the ground through our work with forest certification and forest-dependent communities.” The 17 goals are part of the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015 to end poverty in order to achieve sustainable development.

"Our Global Strength is our Local Strength"

Dec 10 2015

GA ben speech 2

“As a grassroots organization, we have an extremely important role to play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as we can deliver them on the ground,” said Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC International, as he opened the 20th PEFC General Assembly in Montreux, Switzerland.

“We can through our work in the forest and with forest-dependent people and communities directly contribute to 14 out of the 17 goals. We are committed to making the largest possible contribution to realizing these important goals," Mr. Gunneberg continued.

Promoting Sustainable Forest Management - Introducing PEFC’s Unique Approach to Forest Certification

Forest certification is crucial in providing evidence of sustainable forest management. Increasingly, this proof is a prerequisite for doing business; certified forest materials are requested more and more in procurement policies around the world. In turn, forest certification has a direct economic and social impact on the communities that depend on these forests for their livelihoods.

Today just 10 percent of the world’s forests are certified. In tropical and sub-tropical areas this figure drops to under two percent. In total, two-thirds of the total certified area is certified to PEFC’s Sustainability Benchmarks that carefully balance the economic pillar of sustainability with the environmental and social, while maintaining compliance with internationally accepted requirements for sustainable forest management.

PEFC, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, is well placed to expand forest certification globally through its unique bottom-up approach to certification, developed by and for smallholders, and nowadays providing evidence for responsible management of forests of all sizes.

The brochure “Promoting Sustainable Forest Management: Introducing PEFC’s Unique Approach to Forest Certification” highlights what makes PEFC the certification system of choice for stakholders globally.