PEFC comes to Ireland

Green-minded architects and builders are familiar with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies timber as sustainable. It's attracted its fair share of criticism, as a quick look at the blog FSC Watch indicates (the blog even has a section devoted to certification in Ireland). Still, FSC certification is one of the few ways specifiers have of knowing how well a forest is managed when they're choosing timber.

Now another certification scheme, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), is getting up and running on these shores. In an email to Construct Ireland, PEFC Ireland 's William Merivale wrote:

There are two distinct areas of our work.  Firstly we are involved with drafting an Irish forest management certification standard which we expect to be ready for submission to PEFC International for endorsement by late summer/early autumn, and once endorsed both State and private forest owners will be able to apply to have their forests certified by PEFC.  (You may be aware that in the UK the Forestry Commission and a significant area of  private forest managed by Scottish Woodlands/Tilhill have recently opted for dual certification to both FSC and PEFC and we are confident this will happen here as well.)  Secondly we promote chain of custody certification to as wide a range of businesses involved in the manufacture/supply chain of wood-based products, and to their consumers.

Hopefully the arrival of PEFC will improve awareness of forest certification further - I've been surprised once or two recently, talking to people who work in various parts of the timber industry, at their lack of awareness of these certification schemes. Saying that, one architect I spoke to made the valid point that certification marks like FSC or PEFC discourage specifiers from doing detailed research on where timber comes from and deciding based on that - he argued they encourage laziness in timber selection, essentially. It's a reasonable point, but he also acknowledged - rightly - that the likes of FSC and PEFC are necessary for the many specifiers who want a green product but don't have the time or motivation to do serious research.