The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) has been granted membership in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an organization devoted to helping the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environmental and development challenges. IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization, with almost 1,300 government and NGO members and more than 15,000 volunteer experts in 185 countries. “We are so pleased to join this network of conservation-minded organizations. Biodiversity conservation is central to both IUCN’s and SFI’s mission. SFI is committed to quantifying the conservation impact of certified forests and responsible sourcing of forest products through programs such as the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard. Membership in IUCN will give us access to important tools and expertise to help this work,” said Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of SFI Inc.

Fly ash from SCA’s industries can be used to build high-quality forest roads, as shown in a study carried out by SCA and Skogforsk (Forestry Research Institute of Sweden). “Sustainability runs through everything we do, and being able to re-use fly ash for our roads is another step towards integrating the forest with industry,” says Tomas Johansson of SCA Skog. Every year, SCA builds approximately 1,000 kilometers of forest roads. At the same time, SCA’s industries produce thousands of tonnes of fly ash in conjunction with their use of forest raw materials such as branches and crowns for energy. “Using the fly ash where it does the greatest good is important. We know that it works extremely well for soil stabilization, since we’ve tried it at both Östrand and Tunadal,” says Tomas, and continues: Click Read More below for additional information.

Russia has successfully achieve PEFC re-endorsement of its national forest certification system, confirming that it meets PEFC’s globally recognized Sustainability Benchmarks and ensuring that Russian certified forest owners and companies can benefit from the global acceptance of PEFC. With the Russian Federation containing an estimated 800 million hectares of forest, the equivalent to over 20% of the world's forest area and more than Canada and Brazil combined, the continued development and increase of sustainable forest management in the country will have considerable environmental, social and economic benefits.