The Canadian branch of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is trying to distance itself from a promotional video that has angered its Canadian packaging customers. But the video itself, with two demonstrably false claims in it, still remains accessible to the public on FSC Canada’s website.

When it launched the video last month, FSC Canada was proud to claim ownership, calling it “our” new video while baldly declaring that paper and paperboard packaging can be ‘’a product of deforestation or poor forestry practices.’’

The industry’s environmental council (PPEC) objected to this industry smear, laying out the facts in Canada and calling on FSC to remove any references to deforestation. FSC has not done that. But it has changed the wording of its website introduction to the video. It now reads: “Unfortunately, deforestation occurs in other parts of our world. It is important to check that the packaging you purchase does not contribute to deforestation.”

This is certainly an improvement on what was there before, but the video itself is unchanged and still available to the Canadian public. This is what’s wrong with it.

THE BIG DEFORESTATION LIE

First, there’s the big lie about deforestation. The video claims there’s a link between packaging and deforestation. But it doesn’t offer any evidence for this. All FSC Canada has come up with so far is two articles. One refers to the recent opening of a road in the Amazon. But the article doesn’t even mention packaging. The major cause of deforestation in Brazil is cattle ranching and agriculture, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The second article supplied by FSC Canada doesn’t mention packaging either. This opinion piece is now 11 years old and quotes data that’s even older than that. And it’s not solely about deforestation, it’s about loss of forest cover, which includes forest lost through fire and insect infestations (which can be considerable). And again, there’s no mention of Canada.  

So FSC Canada has provided absolutely no proof to date of its claimed linkage between packaging and deforestation. And it certainly won’t be able to do so for Canada. Because there is none. As we detailed in an earlier blog, Canada’s overall deforestation rate from all causes is extremely low, one of the lowest in the world at 0.01 per cent.

The specific rate for the Canadian forestry industry as a whole is a mere 0.0004% (mainly because of the creation of permanent access roads into the harvest areas), with packaging’s share of that a big fat zero. That’s because most of the boxes and cartons made by Canadian mills are 100% recycled content. The few freshly-cut trees that the industry uses for packaging are harvested from forests that are regrown afterwards. That’s the law in Canada. It stays as forest. It’s not deforestation.

FALSE IMAGE

And then there’s the false image that smears the whole industry. The video uses an image of a clear-cut to symbolise deforestation. Unfortunately for FSC, the major cause of deforestation in Canada is not the forest industry but rather the conversion of forest land to agriculture. FSC Canada knows this because it’s written on its website!

So why not use an image of a deforested field of farmer’s hay or gently waving corn to illustrate the facts instead of unfairly smearing the forest and paper industries with the image of a clear-cut? All FSC is doing for a Canadian millennial watching this video is perpetuating a false image of forestry as the major cause of deforestation. It’s not.    

Dare we mention hypocrisy here? On the one hand, FSC is using the image of a clear-cut to symbolise nasty deforestation. Its other hand is stretched out for forest certification cheques from logging or forest companies that happen to use clear-cutting methods to harvest trees.

CANADA LEADS THE WORLD

Finally, the video makes a bald and unsubstantiated claim that paper and paperboard packaging can be a product of “poor forestry practices.” FSC doesn’t define what these “practices” might be but suggests you’ll be OK if you certify your packaging with FSC. Fair enough. This is a commercial.

But what it doesn’t say to our poor confused Canadian millennial, is that Canada leads the world by far in the amount of forest independently certified as being sustainably managed. Almost 40% of the world’s entire certified forest is right here in Canada. That’s “poor forestry practices”?

Not only that, every single mill member of PPEC (the Canadian industry’s environmental council), already has independent chain-of-custody certification for its operations in Canada. Some of them with FSC, some with its competitors the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Canadian Standards Association or PEFC, some with two certifiers, some with all three federally-recognised certifying agencies.. That’s not poor forestry practices. That’s responsible sourcing writ large.

In summary, the Canadian industry has been badly and unfairly smeared here. We can handle the truth, but the truth has not been told in this video. We are the good guys! We cause zero deforestation; have more forest certified as sustainably managed than anyone else in the world; every single mill member of PPEC has responsible (chain-of-custody) certification; we’re high in recycled content (mostly 100%); and our used packaging is the most widely recovered of all materials. FSC should be holding us up as a model for the rest of the world to aspire to. Not smearing us with lies and half-truths.