A major Japanese housing company, Sumitomo Forestry Co., received Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certification for certified forests on October 1, 2007, for the whole process from distribution of certified timber to its use in housing construction. The certification was issued by the Sustainable Green Ecosystem Council (SGEC), Japanese organization for forest certification, which was established in 2003 to monitor diverse forest lands and local characteristics.

In September 2006, Sumitomo Forestry obtained SGEC certification for its own forests in Hokkaido, Wakayama Prefecture, Shikoku and Kyushu Districts, which cover about 40,000 hectares. This enables the company to put the SGEC mark on products such as posts or groundsills made of certified logs from company-owned forests and to issue certificates to houses built with certified products.

The area of SGEC-certified forest has been rapidly broadened since its establishment in 2003, and it accounts for about 1.7 percent of all the forests in Japan as of October 2007. The company also expects to expand its use of domestic certified timbers from other companies in the near future.

http://sfc.jp/english/
- Nippon Paper Industries Aims for Forest Certification (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/db/422-e

Posted: 2008/03/03 09:30:35 AM

TAG Eco-product/Business , Manufacturing industry