Forest Certification
Weyerhaeuser has chosen to maintain a Timberlands environmental management system
that aligns with the ISO 14001 standard, but is not third-party certified. Weyerhaeuser’s
North American Timberlands have been third-party certified since 2001. After a several-month
review in 2008, we determined we could maintain a robust environmental management system
by:
- Clearly identifying how our EMS will align with the ISO 14001 standard
- Completing annual internal audits of the EMS
- Ensuring accountability by reviewing the internal audit results and follow-up actions
items with top management
We remain committed to our long history of forest stewardship and will maintain
our third-party certified, sustainable forest management certification. All of our timberlands in North America are certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative standard. We will continue
to comply with all laws, regulations and company policies that guide our forest
management activities.
In Uruguay and China, we will certify to appropriate national standards based on
availability and customer need. See our
Certification Standard for more information on our forestry management and
certification systems.
Our certified status exceeds the averages for North America (38 percent) and Western
Europe (53 percent), the two regions with the highest percentage of certified forests.
Manufacturing Facilities
All of our mills in the United States that use logs or wood chips as their raw
material are independently certified as meeting the procurement provisions of the
Sustainable Forestry Initiative standard. This includes all primary facilities—that is, those using logs or
chips to produce pulp, paper, lumber, plywood and oriented strand board. In addition,
all of our secondary manufacturing plants meet the fiber-sourcing provisions of
the SFI standard. These certified product lines include I-joist, Parallam, Microllam, and
Shear Brace. All of our mills in Canada are independently
certified as meeting the chain-of-custody requirements of the PEFC and
SFI standard and the procurement provisions of the SFI standard.
Find a list of our certified timberlands
and manufacturing facilities.
What Certification of Our Procurement Systems Says About Our Products
- We know the areas our wood comes from and the type of supplier,
whether they are certified forests owned by major timberland owners, small family
forests, sawmills that supply residual chips, wood dealers or provincial governments
in Canada. We can identify the percentage and source of certified content in our
products.
- We use independent auditors. Auditors of the SFI and PEFC
standards must be accredited by the American National Standards Institute or the
Standards Council of Canada. The SFI standard itself is governed by an independent
board with equal representation from environmental organizations, the forest products
industry, and the broader forestry community. PEFC is a
global umbrella organization for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national
forest certification schemes developed in a multi-stakeholder process. All standards
provide for public consultation.
- The SFI standard, unique among certification systems, requires manufacturers
to reach out to family forest owners and educate them about sustainable forestry.
- We require the use of best management practices by our log suppliers.
These practices, developed state by state, specify proper techniques for protecting
watersheds and riparian areas.
- We promote sustainable forestry practices among those owners who have not
yet pursued certification. In the United States, nearly half of our fiber
comes from family forest owners for whom formal certification is a major hurdle.
- We encourage the use of professionally trained loggers. In the U.S., 97 percent of our manufacturing facilities’ raw material is harvested and delivered by professionally trained loggers.
Weyerhaeuser Expands SFI and PEFC Chain-of-Custody Certification
The following Weyerhaeuser manufacturing facilities have adopted the SFI/PEFC chain-of-custody standard:
- Grande Prairie, AB pulp mill
- Grande Prairie, AB sawmill
- Drayton Valley, AB sawmill
- Princeton, BC sawmill
- Hudson Bay, SK OSB mill
- Edson, AB OSB mill
- Kenora, ON Timberstrand mill
- Eugene, OR hemlock mill
- Longview, Wash., liquid packaging, pulp (SFI only)
- NORPAC, Wash., paper products (SFI only)
Under the standard, wood from certified forests used to make these products is tracked through each stage of production from the forest to the end product. The chain-of-custody provision allows more precise claims about certified content.
Last updated June 17, 2010.