Paper is one of the few truly sustainable products

Paper is based on wood, a natural and renewable material. As trees grow they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Furthermore, as a wood product, the paper also continues to store carbon throughout its lifetime.

Australia’s forests provide a range of ecosystem services in regards to biodiversity, carbon, soil and water. The extent to which these ecosystem services are delivered varies with forest growth stage, with the degree of fragmentation of the forest area, and as a result of the impacts of fire, climatic conditions, and pests and diseases

Australian State of the Forests Report 2018

The paper industry has a number of respected certification schemes with 10 per cent of the world’s forests being certified. There are some 30 schemes in existence. The two main auditable certifications that have emerged are the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC®).

FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) is a stakeholder owned system for promoting responsible management of the world’s forests, with 182 million hectares of forest certified and over 27,500 Chain of Custody certificates worldwide as of April 2014.

-www.ic.fsc.org/index.htm

‘One of the best ways to address climate change is to use more wood, not less. Wood is simply the most abundant, biodegradable and renewable material on the planet.’

-Patrick Moore, PhD (me), Chairman and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd, and co-founder and former director of Greenpeace.

FSC® is an international, non-profit organisation founded in 1993 by environmentalists social interest groups, responsible retailers and leading forest companies to develop standards based on the 10 principles for Forest Stewardship by which responsible forest practice can be measured.

-www.au.fsc.org

PEFC® (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) is the largest forest certification scheme dedicated to sustainable forest management with 258 million hectares of forests certified worldwide.

PEFC® is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1999, which promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification.

PEFC® works throughout the entire forest supply chain to promote good practice in the forest to ensure that timber and non-timber forest products are produced with respect to the highest ecological, social and ethical standards.

-www.pefc.org