Forest Stewardship Council Recognizes Forest Champions

LOS ANGELES, October 6, 2016 /3BL Media/ – Celebrating its strongest group of award winners to date, the Forest Stewardship Council US presented its FSC Leadership Awards last night to a diverse group of organizations and individuals at Greenbuild 2016. Collectively their leadership shows that wood from FSC-certified, responsibly managed forests can meet society’s needs, across a wide array of sectors.

“We were blown away by the accomplishments of our award winners this year,” said Corey Brinkema, president of the Forest Stewardship Council US. “By building the market for FSC products, the award winners show we can conserve forests, even as we use forest products in our daily lives,” he added.

Winners of the 2016 FSC Leadership Awards are as follows:

• Conscious Minds, HP Inc., International Paper, Kimberly-Clark, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., World Wildlife Fund, and Zeus Jones for working in partnership, even where some are direct competitors, to help FSC launch its first major consumer engagement campaign in the United States.
   
• Etsy, Analog Modern, Boles Studio, First Third, Jason Hernandez, Robert Sukrachand, Socotra Studio, Excelsior Wood Products and American Green Consulting for working together to earn FSC group Chain of Custody Certification for local micro manufacturers to meet the Materials Petal of the Living Building Challenge for Etsy’s new commercial office space.
   
• International Living Future Institute for setting a benchmark that has inspired and motivated an entire industry to move beyond “less bad” buildings into the realm of truly restorative design and construction, showing people what’s possible and what the future must look like.
   
• International Paper for innovation and steadfast efforts in applying FSC standards to family woodland stewardship and for helping to bring more than 1 million acres of forest in the Southeastern US into the FSC system.
   
• Northwest Natural Resource Group for using FSC as a tool to increase the natural capital assets of Washington and Oregon by working with family woodland owners and building markets for products from responsibly managed forests.
   
• Hampshire College and Bruner/Cott for leading with wood in its extraordinary Kern Center, using 11 major FSC products, including LVL timbers. 100% of the new wood in this project was FSC certified, an important requirement in its pursuit of the Living Building Challenge.
   
• J Craig Venter Institute and ZGF for using more than $2 million of FSC certified products, 100 percent of all new wood, in this LEED Platinum and net zero energy building.
   
• Perkins + Will for their prominent and extensive use of FSC-certified products in their commercial retrofit, including a 200-foot-long interactive gallery wall, which puts FSC at the center of their design studio.
   
• Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association and Farewell Architects for making FSC materials central to the mission of the education center, and connecting them with the watershed that surrounds it.
   
• Dwell Development for standing apart from other builders by consistently asking for and using FSC-certified products in residential speculative construction projects.
   
• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource for long-term dedication to responsible forest management on state forest lands, and for managing the world’s largest group certificate with more than 38,000 family woodland owners encompassing 2.5 million acres of forest under the Managed Forest Law program.
   
• Humboldt Redwood Company and Mendocino Redwood Company for being the first to bring FSC certification to California’s iconic redwood region to restore severely degraded forestlands after years of mismanagement and for ongoing commitment to responsible management.
   
• Roseburg Forest Products for being one of the longest continually certified companies in the US, and for providing a continuous supply of FSC certified sheet goods to the green building marketplace.  
   
• Unalam for six generations of family ownership since 1892 with ongoing commitment to responsible forest management, and for providing FSC certified glued laminated timbers, helping expand FSC’s footprint in commercial construction.
   
• Zena Forest Products for practicing “close to nature” forest management even before earning FSC certification more than 18 years ago and for building the supply chain for local hardwood flooring in the Pacific Northwest

Certified Wood Products, Collins, Columbia Forest Products, Connor Sports, RoyOMartin, and SCS Global Services sponsored the event.

About the Forest Stewardship Council: The Forest Stewardship Council is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes environmentally sound, socially beneficial, and economically prosperous management of the world’s forests. FSC was created in 1993 to help consumers and businesses identify products from well-managed forests. FSC sets standards by which forests are certified, offering credible verification to people who are buying wood and wood products. More than 5,000 companies and nearly 160 million acres of forestland are certified under FSC standards in the United States and Canada. For more information visit www.fsc.org.