Gertified

BY Ron Jarvis Global Product Manager/Environmental The Home Depot

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ceo Arthur

Blank announced our wood purchasing policy in August 1999, weknew it would be an ambitious undertaking. The pledge was to give preference to wood from well-managed sustainable forests, but the challenge was to get others in the industry to follow our lead.

As a viable and renewable resource. wood can be indefinitely sustainable, but only when properly managed. At The Home Depot, we buy from many companies around the world. Because it is near-impossible to verify and spotcheck environmental claims and forestry practices with onsite inspections on a global basis, our company recognizes the Forest Stewardship Council certification. FSC certification enables us to buy with confidence in both mainstream and remote areas of the world.

Certification also is a very important element in raising awareness and commitment to sustainability. Stakeholders in the forestry industry have been very receptive to moving to a higher standard, and we have found that many of our North American wood product suppliers already have admirable on-the-ground forest management practices.

Although a very small percentage of the wood in the world is certified today, it is our ambition to have the wood products we sell come from well-managed, sustainable certified forests.

Suppliers are vital to the transition, and they know certification is here to stay.

Since making our pledge, we have seen tremendous growth in certification, even in whole categories that now compete with products also carrying the FSC logo. Sales of FSC wood products are up 3007o since we began tracking in June. And while our first FSC products were lowvolume, higher-retail items, today we are selling high volume FSC certified items at the same cost as their non-certified competitors.

Our merchants are no longer searching for certified products to sell in the stores; instead, they are certifying the items we currently sell! Some vendors are seizing this as an opportunity to grow their business, while others are taking a wait-and-see attitude. It is not difficult to conclude which vendors are gaining access to new opportunities.

Because efficiency and long term sustainability do not always shake out in the first few years of a program, it is too early to tell howcertification will affect pricing. However, any increase in cost would be expected to level as the volume of certified wood continues to grow.

If we all focus on what certification is meant to be, a market-based mechanism for responsible forest management, together we can attain true sustainability.

Certification presents a tremendous opportunity to use the market to meet our needs as well as the needs of forests and communities that depend on them.

It should be our quest to work step by careful step in building an industry based upon sound ecological principles. It is not enough to be friendly toward the environment. We must adapt to it!