Standards and Certifications

The SFI program at large is made up of the following components.

SFI forest certification promotes responsible forestry practices. An SFI-certified program participant who owns or manages forestland is certified to SFI Requirements: Section 2: SFI 2010-2014 Standard, land management requirements set out in Objectives 1-7 and 14-20.

SFI chain-of-custody certification is an accounting system that tracks fiber content through production and manufacturing to the end product. Companies can make claims about how much of their product comes from certified lands, how much contains recycled content, and how much is non-certified/non-controversial forest content

SFI certified sourcing addresses the 90 percent of the world’s forests that are not certified. Program participants must show that the raw material in their supply chain comes from legal and responsible sources, whether the forests are certified or not. To meet the certified sourcing requirements, primary producers must be third-party audited and certified to SFI Requirements: Section 2 – SFI 2010-2014 Standard (Objectives 8-20). Secondary producers who want to use the “certified fiber sourcing” label must be certified to SFI Requirements: Section 4 – SFI Certified Sourcing Label Use Requirements .

SFI labels are recognized globally and provide a visual cue to help customers source responsibly managed forest products. In order to use any of the SFI labels, the company must be certified to Section 2 – SFI 2010-2014 Standard, Section 3 – SFI Chain-of-Custody Certification or Section 4 – Rules for the Use of SFI On-Product Labels, and have approval from the Office of Label Use and Licensing.

SFI program requirements are audited by independent, third-party certification bodies to ensure they conform.