This letter to the FSC Director General and the FSC Board of Directors calls for action related to improving the truthfulness and transparency of FSC labelling.
Letter to FSC re: Truth-In-Labelling (Winter ’14)
This letter to U.S. senators, signed by ten environmental groups, urges the federal government to continue using LEED and to reject green building rating systems that lower standards for forests and chemicals of concern.
ENGOs to U.S. Senate (summer ’13)
This position piece was widely distributed at Greenbuild 2012 and urges USGBC to “hold the line” against efforts to weaken LEED as it relates to wood and chemicals of concern.
Hold The Line (fall ’12)
This Statement of Consensus, signed by major AE firms, ENGOs and others, delineates the differences and relative strengths and weaknesses of leadership performance standards and LCA-based disclosure tools, and makes a number of recommendations for the handling of performance and disclosure in LEED 2012.
Driving Leadership in Performance and Disclosure in LEED 2012 (spring ’12)
This report provides a brief history of the timber industry’s 15-year quest to get wood from status quo forestry accepted as a green building material:
Connecting the Dots (winter ’11)
What follows is a position piece prepared for Greenbuild 2011 that summarizes the serious concerns of forest activists regarding LEED 2012′s treatment of wood and forests:
ENGO Position Piece for Greenbuild (fall ’11)
Here is a letter from 7 environmental groups representing about 10 million members to the USGBC Board of Directors and the LEED Steering Committee:
Letter from ENGOs to USGBC BoD and LSC (summer ’11)
Here is an open letter to USGBC members from 12 major environmental groups regarding the ballot for the certified wood credit:
Letter from ENGOs to USGBC Members (fall ’10)
The document that follows is addressed to BIFMA, not USGBC, but is relevant to the certified wood issue in LEED:
ENGOs respond to SFI/Weyerhaeuser (fall ’10)
The letters below are, respectively, communications from over 3 dozen leading architecture and design firms and 15 major environmental groups that urge USGBC to maintain high standards for wood and forests in LEED.
Letter from Sustainable Design Leaders to USGBC (spring ’1o)
Letter from ENGOs to USGBC (spring ’1o)
Here are comments submitted by the Sierra Club and other environmental NGOs on successive drafts of USGBC’s Forest Certification Benchmark:
Sierra Club comments on 4th draft of Benchmark (summer ’1o)
NGO guidance on 3rd draft of Benchmark (spring ’1o)
Alliance for Credible Forest Certification comments on 2nd draft of Benchmark (fall ’09)
Alliance for Credible Forest Certification comments on 1st draft of Benchmark (fall ’08)
Following are documents that provide background and context for the revision of the LEED Certified Wood Credit:
The Forest Certification Wars: What Are They Really About? (winter ’09 article for Cascadia GBC’s Trim Tab)
Alliance for Credible Forest Certification comments on 2nd draft of USGBC forest certification benchmark (fall ’09)
Recommendations to USGBC (fall ’09)
Alliance for Credible Forest Certification rebuttal of SFI (spring ’09)
In addition, the following documents provide useful information related to forest certification and LEED:
Canadian ENGOs Compare SFI to FSC (fall ’09)
Choosing the Best Forest Certification System (spring ’09)