Why do we need forest certification?

Forest certification provides assurance to consumers that the products they buy promotes the well-being of forests, the world’s most important ecosystem, and the people whose livelihoods depend on them.

Concern about the negative impacts of economic activity on the environment, workers and other people grew in the 1990s. However, wood as a raw material is clearly a better than its rivals in terms of environmental impact.

Sustainable forestry
Forest certification is one way to verify this for wood products consumers. A credible forest certification system is based on the internationally accepted principles of sustainable forest management.

Economic activity has both positive and negative impacts on the environment and society. Sustainable forestry minimizes the negative impacts of forestry and emphasizes imitating natural processes as closely as possible – without harming its profitability.

Thus, sustainability is a competitive edge for forestry. This edge can only be achieved, however, if consumers of wood products are properly informed so that they understand the message and are convinced. The target of forest certification is to assure customers that their purchasing decisions support sustainable development.

Forest certification provides:

- consumers an opportunity to promote sustainable development by purchasing products that are made using wood from certified forests

- forest industry customers an opportunity to promote sales and reduce associated risks

- forest-related livelihoods, that is, forestry, forest industry and sellers of wood-based products, an opportunity to promote sales of wood products and improve the image of the sector

- society an opportunity to promote sustainable development.

Forest certification is very important for Finland since most of its wood-based products are exported to countries, where the consumers seldom have any chance to familiarize themselves with Finnish forestry. Forest certification is one good tool for informing them how Finnish forestry supports sustainability in practice. It is also important that there exists an internationally credible forest certification system that is recognized and accepted in countries importing wood-based products.