EU Ecolabel as a Driver for Sustainable Forest Management

Paper-based product categories make up over 30% of EU Ecolabel products on the market[1]. These categories include: converted paper, newspaper print, printed paper, copy and graphic paper and tissue paper. As of September 2016, there are over 12,530 different paper-based EU Ecolabel products on the market.

Considering that close to 30% of the earth surface is covered in forest, and that well over 2 billion people around the world rely on this natural resource for their basic necessities; sustainable forestry is of high importance.

Currently for EU Member States, issues related to forestry are only dealt with via various sectoral policies, which were established as a result of the EU Forestry Strategy (adopted in 1998). On the global level, European Union has been in the forefront of advancements in the field of sustainable forest management. 

Due the rise in consumer demand for sustainable paper products, past decades have seen emergence of several sustainable paper certification schemes, including: Forest Stewardship Council certification (FSC), Programmed for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and of course EU Ecolabel for paper-based product certification. Although not exactly identical, all three certification scheme are committed to responsible forest management via a set of virtuous criteria certification standards.

In many ways, the three voluntary standardizations complement each other. Due to these similarities, EU Ecolabel applicants can use previously obtained PEFC or FSC certification as a prove to meet a certain number of criteria requirements during the EU Ecolabel paper-based products evaluation process. This generally applies to the “Fibers: sustainable forest management” provision of the EU Ecolabel criteria, where applicants can validate the source of their virgin fibers by using a sustainable forest management and chain of custody certificates issued by PEFC, FSC or similar independent third party certification schemes.