The money from the Continental Airlines program is invested in projects designed to reduce greenhouse gases, including reforestation — which seems ironic in this situation, until you realize that Jopling's business focuses on environmentally responsible wood flooring.
The fact that he was even asked such a question, or that it's assumed a customer knows what "carbon offset" means, signals a change in environmental awareness for businesses and consumers alike. Deforestation is a hot topic and has gained attention beyond the obvious concern of losing forestland. At the end of May, aerial photos of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe painted red and black aiming bows and arrows at the airplane made headlines around the world; the associated story reported that Peruvian logging was displacing the tribes. On a larger scope, deforestation is now pegged as an important contributor to global warming.
The focus on deforestation has consequences for professionals at all levels in the hardwood flooring industry, and consumers are asking more questions: Where does the wood come from? How does it impact the environment? Can you prove it?
Now It's the Law
Here's another question they might ask: Is it legal? They aren't the only ones asking. The U.S. government will now ask that question of anyone importing wood flooring into the country.
For the first time, it is against the law to import illegally logged wood products into the United States. The new law, passed as part of the Farm Bill last May (and passed again in June due to a clerical error with the original bill), expanded the Lacey Act amendments from 1981. Previously, those amendments made it unlawful to import, export, sell, acquire or purchase illegally acquired fish, wildlife or plants, but the subset of plants covered by the law was extremely limited: Foreign plants were included only if they were protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and even most domestic plants were not covered. The new amendments, dubbed the Combat Illegal Logging Act, extend the protections to any plant illegally harvested. The definition of "illegal" depends on the law in the country where the wood was harvested; it could be anything from harvesting without a permit to cutting down trees in a national reserve.
The act brought together an unlikely coalition of supporters that spanned the political spectrum and included organizations from Greenpeace to the Teamsters to the Hardwood Federation (which includes the National Wood Flooring Association). While the law aims to, as the name implies, prevent illegal logging, it also is expected to help the domestic market by eliminating the price advantage of foreign producers using illegally logged woods. By most accounts, the amount of illegally logged imported wood is substantial: The most commonly cited statistic, from a 2004 study commissioned by the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association, estimated that 8 to 10 percent of wood products on the global market were from illegal sources.
What's Legal?
Participants in creating the law say it was designed to go after big offenders while putting the burden of proof on the government. The law is not intended "to create any undue hardship," says Dave Groves, campaigner at the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Investigation Agency. "It's really the few bad apples this law is intended to address."
"The onus is on the government to establish a case or not to say there is illegal logging going on in the supply chain," explains Jessica McGlyn, senior manager, terrestrial and freshwater policy, at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)- U.S. in Washington, D.C. "So it's up to the individual importer or company to figure out what their risk is and do some 'due care.'" McGlyn says this approach will enable each company to analyze its risk and create the best solution for its situation, rather than creating a onesize- fits-all bureaucracy.
Examining risk appears to be key. It's expected that certain species, or any wood from a specific region, will raise red flags. Jason Grant, a Sebastopol, Calif.- based independent environmental consultant who has worked extensively in the wood flooring industry, gives the example of a hypothetical importer bringing in Peruvian santos mahogany from China. Now, that shipment will have to be clearly labeled as Peruvian Myroxylon balsamum. "If it is widely known that santos is being illegally logged in the Peruvian Amazon, which it is, that will raise a fl ag — that company might have to turn to one of the four or five or six very legitimate organizations for verifying legality," he says. Groves agrees that mahogany will be under the microscope. "Anybody bringing that in in this post-Lacey world is going to have to make sure their legality is airtight," he says. Other hotspots likely to draw attention include Brazil, the Congo Basin, Siberia, Myanmar, Laos and Indonesia.
Environmental groups monitoring illegal logging activities abroad are expected to play a key role in pointing the finger at the worst offenders. "Some of those companies that environmental groups already have their eyes on are now at risk of having legal action taken, whereas before all the environmental groups could do was complain and protest," says Dan Harrington, director of product development at Richmond, Calif.-based EcoTimber Inc.
Tracking the Trees
Certain species have already been visible targets, merbau foremost among them. In 2005, the EIA claimed several major wood flooring companies were using illegal merbau, and Mike Gagne worked for one of them. Although he felt he had documents proving legality, he realized the company had to go beyond that. As a result, the company's supplier in Asia got involved with the WWF Global Forest & Trade Network's (GFTN) stepwise approach, which helps companies track the sources of their lumber. Now, Gagne is a consultant traveling the world. One of his duties? A sign of the times: helping companies source environmentally responsible wood flooring.
Don Finkell, CEO at Clinton, S.C.-based Anderson Hardwood Floors, says Anderson has been hard at work on these issues. Because of the high rate of illegal logging in Indonesia, where there has been a log export ban since 2001, the company only buys from FSC-certified suppliers there, and it has taken other steps to verify sustainable sources. "We've been very proactive and aggressive on weeding out anything we think might be from an illegal source. We discontinued buying merbau, santos mahogany and teak, because a lot comes from areas with a high level of illegal logging," he says. Now, the company has contracted with the Rainforest Alliance to review its supply chain. While Finkell says his own conscience is clear, "I don't know I have everything I need to be able to put in front of a customs inspector to prove it to him."
Buying certified wood is one way to guarantee a legitimate source, but the majority of forests still aren't certifi ed, and tracking down the sources of uncertified wood is usually complicated at best.
At Brandywine, Jopling also has been working with the WWF GFTN's stepwise approach. While the intention is good, the implementation is difficult.
"It's really like a tree. You track down the roots and you try to figure out where every root goes. It goes deeper and deeper and branches off more and more and more," Jopling says. "Say you're buying from one mill and let's say he's buying lumber from three brokers. And this month he buys from six sawmills and each sawmill buys from 40 different loggers—try to figure that one out." But making the attempt is important, he says: By asking the questions, suppliers are put on notice that it matters.
Finkell agrees. Although it can seem like an impossible task to track where the timber, which is often sold at huge markets in places such as Shanghai and other Chinese markets, comes from, asking is the first step. "Most people don't ask the question where it came from. They just ask, 'What's the price?' and 'Why is it so high?' They don't realize it, but by insisting on a lower and lower price, they put a lot of pressure on these Chinese firms to cut corners, and one of the corners is to not worry about the legality of it."
Now people are legally required to ask these questions, and the effect of the law could be far-reaching. "It will be very interesting to see how it comes down to intention and enforcement, but let me tell you, it's going to give pause to everybody in the import side," Jopling says.
The Playing Field Levels
"Hopefully, by deterring some of the 'bottom feeders' that are dragging prices down with illegal material, we'll see prices for exotic woods begin to more accurately reflect how precious they really are," EcoTimber's Harrington says.
Even before the recent Lacey Act Amendments, prices on many exotics such as Brazilian cherry/jatoba had begun to climb. There have been crackdowns on illegal logging in many countries, most notably Brazil, where the government has begun seizing illegal shipments and shutting down sawmills. The world is now watching — literally, as satellite technology has made it easier to track logging activity. The Brazilian government uses it, and the U.K. recently announced it will spend millions to fund a project in which a spy satellite will hover over the Congo Basin rainforest, which includes six countries, to help combat deforestation. A Brazilian tribe from the Amazon has said it will start using Google Earth to monitor logging in their homeland. Technology can help in other ways: A company called Certisource Timber SEA Pte. Ltd., based out of Singapore, uses DNA testing to track individual pieces of wood back to legal sources.
Legal, Sustainable or Both?
As the focus sharpens on the legality of wood products, it's important to remember that legal doesn't necessarily mean sustainable, reminds Mark Hayes, market development manager for Weyerhaeuser South America. "They're still deforesting rainforests legally, so you can get legally sourced tropical species," he says, emphasizing that for exotics, certification is critical to ensure that the forest is being managed well. Weyerhaeuser avoids illegal products by focusing entirely on flooring from rapidly growing eucalyptus plantations certified by CERFLOR, the Brazilian certification system (the plantations are on Atlantic rainforest land that had previously been deforested for farming).
The issue of legality versus sustainability can create confusion for consumers and wood flooring professionals alike, as can the different sustainable forestry certifications (see "Understanding Certifications" below). Many consumers are just getting used to the idea that cutting down trees isn't always bad, so sorting through the complexities of legal sourcing, certifications and overall environmental impact can be complex. Engineered flooring can be even more complicated because wear layers and bottom layers are often sourced from different continents.
Hayes says he recently received a call from a consumer asking if the carbon footprint of his flooring would be smaller than that of competing wood flooring products. "How am I supposed to answer that question?" he asks. It's a good question. The NWFA made a start at examining the environmental impact of wood flooring against competing types of floor coverings by commissioning a Life Cycle Analysis study of solid wood flooring (a link to the report can be found at www.nwfa.org; an engineered LCA study is also in the works), but comparing the impact of countless species in different types of products traveling varying distances around the globe is a daunting task.
Homeward Bound?
After years of hype over exotic species, some people anticipate the new Lacey Act amendments might renew a focus on domestic products. Finkell says he anticipates that companies may want to limit their potential for liability. "I think it will change people's long-term plans about what they're doing — I think it will move people back toward domestic products," he says.
From an environmental standpoint, U.S. and Canadian hardwoods, certified or not, are generally a safer bet than uncertified exotic products, since forests here are usually sustainably managed (consumers who want domestic products should make sure that vague species names such as oak or birch, for example, are actually domestics).
Despite vast amounts of well-managed domestic forests and a growing demand for FSC-certified products driven by LEED building certifications, FSC certification of domestic forests remains limited. American forests are often privately owned small tracts of land, and the complexity and cost of FSC certification is too much for many landowners. This creates an environmental paradox: To get FSC material, purchasers often have to buy products, often plantation-grown, that are shipped around the globe, instead of wood flooring from a domestic producer buying sustainably harvested domestic wood. "It doesn't make sense when you've got a forest in a positive growth balance right here at home," Finkell says.
The FSC recently announced changes intended to make certification less burdensome for small U.S. forest holdings, and the NWFA has also begun to address the issue. While the project is still in the development phase, the association's Environmental Task Force (headed by Finkell) is working with the FSC and SCS, an FSC accredited certifier, to develop "NWFA Responsible Procurement Program" designations. The program would recognize FSC as the "gold standard," Finkell says, and the NWFA designations would be steps on the path to an ultimate goal of FSC certification. The program would also attempt to help address hurdles to FSC group certification by creating incentives for group certification.
Although the project is just beginning, Grant sees it as a promising shift in the dynamics between industry and environmental interests—a shift that was encouraged by the cooperation involved in passing the recent Lacey Act amendments. For too long, he says, resources have been squandered fighting over which certification programs should be used domestically, even though, from a global perspective, the majority of forests here are well-managed. In the meantime, he says, "We're facing the specter of global warming, the specter of loss of huge tracts of tropical forests that are the greatest reservoirs of terrestrial biodiversity on this planet, the specter of all these poor countries getting that much poorer because they've squandered their resource base — Everything isn't perfect here, but this is not where the real forest crisis is."
