Reversing Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Carbon dioxide is absorbed by maturing timber and becomes locked in that timber.  Carbon dioxide is the responsible chemical compound for the greenhouse effect.  This relationship emphasizes the value of sustainable forest management.  By harvesting mature trees and replacing them with saplings sustainable forestry actually reverses carbon dioxide emissions.

This is the simple premise behind Sustainable Cards as we obtain all of our materials from sustainably managed forests.  These managed forests rely upon replacing mature trees with new trees that will absorb carbon dioxide as they mature.  As for the harvested timber; the carbon dioxide that was sequestered during maturation of the timber is locked in the wood fibers for the life of the material.

Sustainable Forestry is:

Sustainable forest management is based on environmentally, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of forests for present and future generations. Sustainable Managed Forests are a solution to address the global problem of illegal logging. Timberand paper companies around the world buy wood from certified and uncertified forests.

Sustainable forest management (SFM) has been, since the UNCED in Rio in 1992, a leading concept in international deliberations and work. The result today is a broad consensus on principles, guidelines, criteria and indicators for SFM on international governmental level.

One such process is the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), on going process in which hundreds of experts from a very wide range of stakeholder groups have been involved.

For the forest certification purposes, each country develops in a broad multi-stakeholder process its own national (or regional) standard for sustainable forest management based on the MCPFE guidelines or other intergovernmental processes promoting SFM, the national laws and regulations and the core International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and other international conventions ratified by the country in question such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, Kyoto Protocol, Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and the Flora and Biosafety Protocol.

Sustainable Card's Commitment

Sustainable Cards LLC fully supports the movement for sustainable forests by producing our cards exclusively from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and/or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).  Both are independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests.

FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) was established in 1993 in response to concerns of global deforestation.  FSC is a certification system that provides internationally recognized standard-setting, trademark assurance, and accreditation services to companies, organizations, and communities interested in responsible forestry.  The FSC currently represents 50 countries around the world and provides a credible link between responsible production and consumption of forest products enabling consumers and businesses to make purchasing decisions that benefit people and the environment as well as providing ongoing business value.

The PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) was founded in 1999 and promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification. The PEFC provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that they are promoting the sustainable management of forests.  The PEFC has created a global umbrella organization for the assessment of, and mutual recognition of national forest certification methods developed in a multi-stakeholder process. These national methods build upon the inter-governmental processes for the promotion of sustainable forest management, a series of on-going mechanisms supported by 149 governments in the world covering 85% of the world's forest area.