Certified sustainably forested fibers boost image of recycled paperboard

Materials for paperboard packaging and labels can be made from a varied array of sources, including virgin fiber, recycled fiber, sustainably forested fiber or a combination of any or all of these sources.

Recycled fiber generally is considered the first choice for eco-conscious paper products, and many, if not most, modern consumers and packaging operations are familiar with the two most common types of recycled paper fiber: post-consumer and post-industrial.

Post-consumer materials are made from finished products, including packaging, that consumers have deemed as at the end of the useful lives. These spent products are separated from the wastestream by consumers or municipalities and then sold to manufacturers to be broken down into raw materials for reuse. Post-industrial material is scrap virgin material collected during a manufacturing process instead of being discarded. Post-industrial materials differ from post-consumer materials in that these fibers have not been manufactured and sold as an end product before being recycled.

Biodegradable materials, limited recyclability

The problem with recycled fibers is that forest products are easily biodegradable and products made from these sources can only go through a finite number of recycling cycles before they are no longer usable.

A study by Metafore (www.metafore.org), a nonprofit organization that specializes in helping businesses to evaluate, select and manufacture eco-friendly wood and paper products, found that the estimated longevity of container board materials, when no fresh fiber is introduced, currently is about seven months. Metafore projects the maximum lifetime for recycled container board fiber is 13 months.

While the study did no

t specifically examine label-grade papers, it did evaluate the number of usable recycling cycles for the often-comparable printing and writing papers, and the news for paper fiber longevity is even more dismal. According to Metafore's evaluations, the current longevity for printing and writing paper fibers is one month and the maximum projected lifetime wasn't much better than two months. Metafore researchers concluded that the total fiber stream requires continuous inputs of virgin fiber — even if all the fiber is recycled.

Public perception of wood harvesting

The use of virgin fibers, while necessary to maintain the fiber stream, is not without controversy. The increasing interest in the environment can be seen in everything from corporate mandates to pop culture, with high-earning movies such as An Inconvenient Truth , narrated by Al Gore, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy based on the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Tolkien's words, in particular, are often invoked by environmentalists in protest of both deforestation and devastation of native cultures. Tolkien's works as an analogy for the ills of industrialized society might not be of direct concern for packaging operations managers; yet the ability of Tolkien's words to reach a new audience within a new medium is a noteworthy indicator of how the issues of deforestation and prese rvation of native cultures still resonate in society more than 50 years after his first book was published.

Reporting standards, compliance certification

Packaging managers who want to avoid the potentially negative perception associated with packaging made with virgin fibers might want to consider the use of certified, sustainably forested fibers.

These fibers are certified to have been sourced from forests that are managed according to forest management standards set by nonprofit organizations, e.g., the Forest Stewardship Council [(FSC) www.fscus.org] and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative [(SFI) www.sfiprogram.org]. Standards differ among organizations, but a common theme with these standards is the recognition of social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations.

SFI standard principles specifically address nine areas of concern: sustainable forestry; responsible practices; reforestation and productive capacity; forest health and productivity; long-term forest and soil productivity; protection of water resources; protection of special sites and biological diversity; legal compliance; and continual improvement. The FSC has a set of 10 principles and more than 50 criteria that address legal issues, indigenous rights, labor rights, environmental impacts and other issues surrounding 
forest   management.

To help guarantee the authenticity of forest owners and forest product suppliers, both the FSC and the SFI accredit third-party certification organizations. One of the most important criteria looked at by these third-party certification bodies is a forest product's chain-of-custody (CoC), which details the movement of product from its origins in the forest to final product.

The FSC CoC requires certified materials to be tracked through virtually all production processes from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution. In general, only FSC CoC-certified operations are allowed to label products with the FSC trademarks.

SFI CoC certification can be used to identify the percent of certified and/or recycled content in a product. Under the SFI CoC guidelines, there are two methods by which a company can disclose certified and recycled content. Under the average percent method, a company must disclose what percentage of the fiber in a specific product (calculated as an average) comes from certified forests, from recycled content and from non-certified forests. Only the average percent method may be used to qualify for the “percent-content” label. Under the volume credit method, a company may use an SFI label to quantify the average percentage of fiber of its output that comes from certified lands.

Some protection against claims of 'greenwashing'

By using FSC- or SFI-certified products or becoming a certified supplier, a packaging operation can ensure a measure of protection against claims of greenwashing.

Packaging Digest recently published a comprehensive study on sustainability issues. (See PD, Nov. 8, p. 28) Respondents came from PD and Converting magazines print and e-newsletter readers in addition to current Sustainable Packaging Coalition [(SPC) www.sustainablepackaging.org] members. More than three quarters of the study respondents—77 percent of PD and Converting readers and 88 percent of SPC members surveyed—stated there should be minimum standards set before packagers can market themselves as green. Also, 52 percent of surveyed SPC members stated that a lack of reporting standards was one of the biggest challenges to making the packaging processes more sustainable.

The use of a FSC- or SFI-certified label can serve as evidence that a minimum standard has been met.

Playing matchmaker

Before certified sustainably forested packaging or labels can be made available to packaging operations, these items must be made from fiber that is harvested from certified sustainable forests.

Because certification of these forests is a rather new phenomenon—the FSC was formed in 1993, and the SFI created its original principles and implementation guidelines in 1998—locating this fiber hasn't always been easy.

As FSC-U.S. president Corey Brinkema explains it, the market for certified sustainably forested fiber has been and currently is an “inefficient market” and organizations such as his are working to change that. His definition of an inefficient market is one without the necessary structure and business relationships in place to build demand for its products.

“We're trying to develop market pull to reward forest landowners for responsible behavior,” says Brinkema. “ The FSC brings together three primary stakeholder groups of forest management.” These groups belong to the economic or business community; the environmental community, which is largely environmental non-governmental organizations; and the social community, which includes a range of groups from indigenous rights groups to community, economic development organizations.

One of these business partners is Georgia-Pacific Corp. (www.gp.com), which worked with FSC on a field test partnership project to explore topics related to good forest management and FSC-certification opportunities for family forest landowners in the U.S.

Using information gained from the study, FSC is launching a concentrated effort to encourage certification by small landowners located in the southeastern U.S.

“Unfortunately, when you get down to the Southeast, except for a few remaining industrial landowners there are few timber investment organizations. You're really talking about small landowners,” says Brinkema. “Frankly, almost none of them are certified under any system and so that's where we were really having a major new initiative to introduce and encourage FSC certification by small landowners. We specifically focus on the southeast in part because the focus on demand for paper packaging in this area.”

Another partner is MWV (www.mwv.com]. MWV has participated in the SFI program since it began in 1994; MWV forestland and fiber supply practices have been independently third-party certified to SFI standards since 2000; and the packaging and consumer goods company became SFI CoC-certified in March 2008. “Essentially, every packaging solution that uses MWV paperboard from one of our U.S. mills uses SFI-certified material,” says Cliff Schneider, vp of stewardship and sustainability for MWV. “For customers concerned with the impact of paperboard packaging on the world for us, choosing a partner with the certified chain of custody program provides added confidence that the packages that carry their brand comes from well-managed, legal sources. Our U.S. paperboard mill chain of custody certifications also cover more than 15 of MWV's integrated converting plants that meet specific requirements.”

Efforts by these nonprofit organizations are showing returns. “SFI is growing,” remarks SFI president and CEO Kathy Abusow. “Pretty much every single day since last year, we have had a new certificate application come in, whether it is for a forest, a fiber-sourcing or a chain-of-custody certificate.”