PEFC

The abbreviation Pefc literally means P rogramme for E ndorsement of F orest C ertification schemes.

It 'a certification program for sustainable management of forests.

The PEFC is an international certification that affects multiple stakeholders in a control system of sustainable forest management at various levels.

Who participates in the PEFC (forest ownership, operators of the timber industry, wood artisans, and consumers ...) aims to commercialize products of wood derived from forests managed in a responsible manner. This is also an improvement of the image of the timber sector.

Forest certification is born from the need to provide wood products to consumers who wish to purchase such products only if they come from forests managed in a sustainable and correct and then by a forest that will continue in the future to generate plants and then wood.

The PEFC allows you to trace the origin of their timber they buy. A company certified under PEFC can label your own wood, and must prove to buy only from companies that have the same brand for their wood.

The types of certification are 2. The first type relates to forest management, and forest ownership may have. A second type of certification is who manufactures or manufactured with wood from certified forests. This second type of certification is called Chain of Custody (CoC Chain of Custody).

In Italy the majority of certified companies, use the CoC as we are importers of timber, which is then transformed. But even in Italy more and more forests are PEFC certified because the need to communicate to the public that you correctly handle the forest becomes even more pressing by the final consumer (as well as by operators in the sector).

The PEFC certification was born in 1998 thanks to the owners and forest industry in Europe. This scheme made it possible to recognize national schemes that were already in place in individual countries.

At the moment, certified about 240 million hectares mainly in North America (U.S. and Canada) and Northern Europe (Austria, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, and Italy, even if entry is a bit 'after in 2001)

Other states are being added in all continents, and are adapting their certification schemes with the PEFC.

In Italy is catching on as either the PEFC forest management, which as Chain of Custody. Currently certified companies in Italy are more than 800, while nearly 800,000 hectares are certified.

The wood processing companies that have and are certifying, are mostly industries packaging, furniture, construction, flooring, paper, carpentry, games, production profiles.