Forest Certification

Weyerhaeuser has chosen to maintain a Timberlands environmental management system that aligns with the ISO 14001 standard, but is not third-party certified. Weyerhaeuser’s North American Timberlands have been third-party certified since 2001. After a several-month review, we determined we could maintain a robust environmental management system by:

• Clearly identifying how our EMS will align with the ISO 14001 standard
• Completing annual internal audits of the EMS
• Ensuring accountability by reviewing the internal audit results and follow-up actions items with top management

We remain committed to our long history of forest stewardship and will maintain our third-party certified, sustainable forest management certification. These certifications include SFI in the U.S. and CSA in our Canadian forest operations. We will continue to comply with all laws, regulations and company policies that guide our forest management activities.

In Uruguay and China, we will certify to appropriate national standards based on availability and customer need. See our Certification Standard for more information on our forestry management and certification systems.

Our certified status exceeds the averages for North America (39 percent) and Western Europe (54 percent), the two regions with the highest percentage of certified forests.

• Manufacturing Facilities
• What Certification of Our Procurement Systems Says About Our Products
• Five Plants Meet SFI Chain-of-Custody Standard

Manufacturing Facilities

All of our mills* in the United States that use logs or wood chips as their raw material are independently certified as meeting the procurement provisions of the SFI standard. This includes all primary facilities—that is, those using logs or chips to produce pulp, paper, lumber, plywood and oriented strand board. In addition, all of our secondary manufacturing plants meet the fiber-sourcing provisions of the SFI standard. These certified product lines include I-joist, Parallam, Microllam, Shear Brace, and Open Web I-joists. All of our mills in Canada are independently certified as meeting either the chain-of-custody requirements of the CSA, PEFC or SFI standard or the procurement provisions of the SFI standard.

Find a list of our certified timberlands and manufacturing facilities.

What Certification of Our Procurement Systems Says About Our Products

• We know the areas our wood comes from and the type of supplier, whether they are certified forests owned by major timberland owners, small family forests, sawmills that supply residual chips, wood dealers or provincial governments in Canada. We can identify the percentage and source of certified content in our products.
• We use independent auditors. Auditors of the SFI, CSA and PEFC standards must be accredited by the American National Standards Institute or the Standards Council of Canada. The SFI standard itself is governed by an independent board with equal representation from environmental organizations, the forest products industry, and the broader forestry community. The CSA standard's governance represents four interests: professional, environmental, government and business. PEFC is a global umbrella organization for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes developed in a multi-stakeholder process. All standards provide for public consultation.
• The SFI standard, unique among certification systems, requires manufacturers to reach out to family forest owners and educate them about sustainable forestry.
• We monitor the use of best management practices by our log suppliers. These practices, developed state by state, specify proper techniques for protecting watersheds and riparian areas. In 2008, 96 percent of the primary raw material used by Weyerhaeuser's U.S. mills was harvested by professionally trained loggers.
• We promote sustainable forestry practices among those owners who have not yet pursued certification. In the United States, nearly half of our fiber comes from family forest owners for whom formal certification is a major hurdle.

Three Plants Meet SFI Chain-of-Custody Standard

Weyerhaeuser manufacturing facilities that have adopted the SFI chain-of-custody standard are:

• Longview, Wash., liquid packaging, pulp
• NORPAC, Wash., paper products
• Eugene, Ore., hemlock lumber

Under the standard, wood from certified forests used to make these products is tracked through each stage of production. Modeled after a similar provision used by the European-based Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, the chain-of-custody provision allows more precise claims about certified content.