As you reported (“States Fight Green-Building Leader Over Local Wood,” June 9), a growing number of states are joining the long list of elected officials, forestry experts, conservationists and others who urge the U.S. Green Building Council to promote responsible forestry in North America by opening up the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program to other credible forest certification standards, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the American Tree Farm System.
As your article noted, the green building council’s exclusive recognition of the Forest Stewardship Council program within LEED can discourage builders, architects and designers from sourcing wood products from the majority of domestic well-managed forests. Currently LEED treats two-thirds of certified forests in North America unfairly while favoring the stewardship council.
Contrary to your article’s suggestion, the stewardship council does not prohibit certification of plantations. And many companies are given exemptions to use FSCs “banned” chemicals.
SFI certified products have been excluded from the forest certifi-cation/sourcing credit since LEED’s inception without SFI ever once having been told the basis of that exclusion. SFI encourages the green building council to clarify why FSC meets their credit expectations and why SFI does not.
Kathy Abusow, president & CEO
Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc.
Washington, D.C.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
-
Community
Weekly Masses in Spanish in Waterville to return March 14
-
Local & State
Maine CDC reports 185 cases of COVID-19, no new deaths
-
Letters to the Editor
Guerrette wrong about COVID restrictions
-
Editorials
View from Away: Biden shouldn’t have spared Saudi Arabia’s crown prince
-
Letters to the Editor
Veteran having trouble getting vaccine
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi {SUB NAME}, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have one? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login to participate in the conversation. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.