{"id":16707,"date":"2012-12-13T17:01:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T22:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=16707"},"modified":"2012-12-13T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T22:01:46","slug":"new-studies-show-need-for-leed-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/16707\/new-studies-show-need-for-leed-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"New Studies Show Need For LEED Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, we examined<\/a> how land management regulations for our forests significantly alter economic activity in timber markets.\u00a0 Since that time, more recent reports and studies underscore the importance of maintaining a level regulatory playing field, and how policies based on faulty assumptions can have economic and environmental consequences.<\/p>\n

Specifically, forest certification programs like the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) recognize when a landowner or business complies with benchmarks that signify responsible forest management.\u00a0 Tree farmers and businesses seek \u201ccertification\u201d from these groups to preserve their property and sell \u201cgreen\u201d goods in the market.\u00a0 Numerous studies and testimony from land managers and conservationists support all three systems as beneficial to the environment.\u00a0 However, environmental activists continue to pressure private companies and government officials nationwide to favor FSC over the other two programs, which themselves certify tens of millions more acres of forests in America than FSC.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the U.S. Green Building Council\u2019s (USGBC) LEED system only defines FSC-certified wood as sustainable.\u00a0 As a result, SFI or ATFS timber cannot enter LEED projects, of which there are more than 13,000 nationwide.\u00a0 The USGBC is nominally a nonprofit organization, but local, state and federal agencies accept its guidelines without question, and mandate them in building projects.<\/p>\n

The National Legal Policy Center underscored the wrongheadedness of that framework in a recent white paper<\/a> entitled \u201cThe Ethics of Forest Certification: When Unintended Consequences Result.\u201d The paper explains the anti-competitive nature of the LEED system, and how it forces taxpayer dollars to finance projects to benefit a private organization \u2013 FSC \u2013 over its competitors.\u00a0 Additionally, the paper questions whether consumers get a \u201cbang for their buck\u201d when they pay price premiums in excess of 15% for FSC wood.\u00a0 These questions occur due to documentation of \u201cclear-cuts\u201d of forests on FSC-certified land overseas, and the fact that FSC recognizes 90% of its forests in countries outside the U.S. \u2013 many of them with lower environmental standards.<\/p>\n

The American Consumer Institute published another study<\/a>, \u201cComparing Forest Certification Standards in the U.S.,\u201d which highlights how the actual practices of certification programs in the U.S. do not always match public perceptions.\u00a0 The study shows auditors for FSC readily acknowledging discrepancies between FSC\u2019s implementation on the ground, and how land managers and FSC differ on common definitions for forestry terms.\u00a0\u00a0 This confusion leads to companies \u201cleaving clumps of unmerchantable trees in scattered areas, usually in riparian areas, draws and inaccessible corners\u201d on FSC property in the southern U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the anti-competitive nature of the current LEED rating system, the negligible environmental benefits of an FSC-only regime and the misinformation resulting from these frameworks, the time is long overdue to support a level playing field that allows all certification programs to compete equally among consumers, businesses and foresters.<\/p>\n

A freer market would be a better market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, we examined how land management regulations for our forests significantly alter economic activity in timber markets.\u00a0 Since that time, more recent reports and studies underscore the importance of maintaining a level regulatory playing field, and how policies based on faulty assumptions can have economic and environmental consequences. Specifically, forest certification programs like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3967,1877,3796,3908],"class_list":["post-16707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-forest-stewardship-council-fsc","tag-green","tag-leed","tag-usgbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16708,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions\/16708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}