Forest certification

Metsähallitus forests are certified in compliance with the international PEFC system. A certificate is a sign that the wood raw material is procured from sustainably managed forests. As much as 95 percent of Finland’s commercial forests are PEFC-certified.

In PEFC certification, the requirements for forest management are set in a broad-based and transparent process. A national working group prepares a standard, revised every five years, which PEFC International evaluates against its global criteria. The Finnish PEFC certificate sets a number of concrete requirements to forest management. Special attention is given to the protection of land and water habitats important for forest biodiversity, the maintenance of forest productivity, and the reconciliation of traditional livelihoods and forestry.

Metsähallitus PEFC certification verifies that the forest management
complies with standards, based on the PEFC FI 1001:2009 and PEFC FI 1003:2009 standards .

Besides sustainable forest management, PEFC certification covers our chain-of-custody monitoring system (Certificate No. 7743-03). This is a tool to verify that the timber supplied by Metsähallitus originates in legal and known sources.

In chain-of-custody management, Metsähallitus applies the percentage-based method in which the proportion of certified timber is calculated monthly for each assortment. This way our customers are able to demonstrate how much of the wood raw material used for the end product originates in certified forests.

Metsähallitus implements an environmental management system based on the ISO 14001:2004 standard (Certificate No. 54067-2009-AE-FINAS).

Links:
Forest management in Metsähallitus Forestry business unit.
Certificate number 8305-01 pdf-file in English.
 

Chain of custody, Certificate number 7743-01 pdf-file in English.