Business View Oceania | Volume 3, Issue 10

51 52 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 it’s incredibly effective in ensuring forests are managed properly.” AS 4708 Sustainable Forest Management is identified by Responsible Wood as a standard that: “Provides forest managers with economic, social, environmental, and cultural criteria and requirements that support management of forests for products and services.” AS 4707, titled the Chain of Custody certification, serves to track forest products from their harvest through to handover for end use, Mr. Dorries continues. “This certification allows for the verification of claims regarding product sustainability and source origin; it allows us to check a product really comes from where it says it does.” AS 4707 Chain of Custody is identified by Responsible Wood as a standard that: “Provides all organisations in the wood or forest products certification chain with the minimum criteria and requirements to implement a credible system. This system tracks wood or forest products originating from certified forest through all phases of ownership, transportation, and manufacturing, to the end consumer.” Supporting the implementation of the aforementioned Australian Standards, which are also applicable to the New Zealand forest industry, is the Responsible Wood Certification Program. The Responsible Wood Certification Program is carried out by Responsible Wood to independently audit forests and forest managers, to ensure they are meeting the requirements to maintain their standard certification. Both of Responsible Wood’s standards are internationally endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), Mr Ross explains. “PEFC is an international system of mutual recognition whereby national based standards like our AS 4707 and 4708 are compared against international benchmarks. If standards are credible and meet international benchmarks, then the organisation becomes PEFC endorsed, which allows recognition including labelling products with the PEFC logo for sale into international markets. There are over 50 different PEFC endorsed standards around the world. We were the first non- European standards organisation to be endorsed under PEFC, alongside Chile.” A key priority of Responsible Wood is educating members of the Australian and New Zealand forest industries, as well as the general public, on the importance of credible environmental initiatives. Certification through Responsible Wood provides a mark of quality and responsibility that forest managers and consumers can trust in, Mr. Ross says. “Our logo tells you that the product, no matter what it is, comes from a sustainable source, and that it is Australian made with Australia in mind. The great thing about the Australian market is over 90% of our forests are certified as being RESPONS I BLE WOOD