Green paper jam

By Kath Gannaway
AUSTRALIAN Paper has denied it has been forced to take the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo off its Reflex brand copy paper.
The denial comes after environment groups revealed Australian Paper no longer has the right to display the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo.
The FSC re-certified Australian Paper to a lower Chain of Custody standard after the company withdrew from the Controlled Wood certification program, effectively excluding paper products which contain any native regrowth eucalypt fibre. The Wilderness Society and My Environment said Australian Paper uses woodchips from Victorian native forests to make Reflex paper and heralded the loss of certification of what they said was the company’s flagship brand as a victory for native forests.
“Australian Paper has long held up Reflex’s FSC certification as proof of the paper’s green credentials, but the veneer of respectability has now been well and truly removed,” said Wilderness Society campaigner Luke Chamberlain.
Australian Paper claimed, however, that it still had FSC Chain of Custody certification for other products and spokesman Shaun Scallan put the dropping of the logo down to “a packaging decision”.
He said the company had not had the FSC logo on Reflex paper for about nine months.
“We did a packaging review in December last year and as FSC doesn’t allow you to put any other logos on your product, we went with AFS (Australian Forestry Standard) and PEFC (Programme For The Endorsement of Forest Certification) endorsement.
“Auditor Rainforest Alli-ance confirmed that under the certification Australian Paper may continue to produce FSC-certified product based on sourcing of material from FSC-certified operations and recycled content, as allowed under the FSC rules for mixed and recycled produce,” said Australian Paper CEO Jim Henneberry.
The contentious issue in the audit was Australian Paper’s withdrawal from the Controlled Wood component of the certification process.
My Environment spokes-person Sarah Rees said the withdrawal was an 11th hour move by Australian Paper to remove timber supplied by VicForests from the audit process.
“They withdrew recognising it was unlikely to make the grade environmentally,” she said.
Mr Henneberry, however, said advice received by the auditor, Rainforest Alliance from FSC International around the interpretation of the standard had been received after the physical audit had been completed.
“This left insufficient time for us to address and so we elected to withdraw Controlled Wood from our certification,” he said.