Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI)

Glatfelter’s Spring Grove, PA and Chillicothe, OH operations are now third party certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Chain-of-Custody Standard.


What this means to you
SFI Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certification provides our customers with third party verification that Glatfelter products come from sustainable, non-controversial sources. This means that Glatfelter can track the fiber used in its products back to responsibly managed forests under the SFI Standard which integrates reforestation with the conservation of soil, air and water quality, biological diversity, wildlife and aquatic habitat, recreation and aesthetics.

As an SFI program participant, Glatfelter practices sustainable forestry on company owned lands as well as positively influencing the sustainable management of millions of additional acres through logger and forester training and landowner outreach programs. Private and family forest land owners play a significant role in supplying wood fiber, as more than 10 million such owners account for more than 60% of forest lands used by paper mills in the U.S. This training and education ensures the long-term health and sustainability of forests beyond the direct control of Glatfelter.

SFI CoC certification also means that Glatfelter now has the ability to pass SFI credits through the chain-of-custody process for those customers who require certified product. For those who do not require certified product, you can rest assured that the statements above apply to all Glatfelter products produced in our OH and PA facilities.

Listen to an interview with Larry Seltzer, President and CEO of the Conservation Fund (www.conservationfund.org) as he discusses SFI and what it means to be certified.

What is SFI®?
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a fully independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of sustainable forestry. The SFI Program is a comprehensive system of principles, objectives and performance measures developed by professional foresters, conservationists and scientists, among others that combines the perpetual growing and harvesting of trees with the long-term protection of wildlife, plants, soil and water quality.

The SFI Standard (986 KB PDF) spells out the requirements of compliance and is based on nine principles that address economic, environmental, cultural and legal issues, in addition to a commitment to continuously improve sustainable forest management. The standard also contains 13 objectives covering sustainable forest management, procurement of wood and fiber, public reporting, continuous improvement and mitigating illegal logging.

In 2006, SFI participants reforested 1.2 million acres of land, trained more than 7,000 loggers and foresters in sustainable forestry practices and invested more than $77 million in sustainability research. Additional facts and figures can be obtained in SFI’s Annual Progress Report.