E.F. (Ted) Boswell
Chairman, E.B. Eddy Limited
I am delighted to be here this morning. Particularly as my country - Canada - is a major contributor - financially and practically - to your work. In that spirit I intend to describe how Canada's forest industry and its partners are managing Sustainable Development of its forests.
However, by the time I am finished you may want to describe me as a villain. For I am here to coax - cajole - frighten - and yes - even embarrass you. My sole mission today is to recapture your support and that of your governments for what could become a disappearing commitment to Sustainable Development.
When the Bruntland Commission published Our Common Future in 1987, the world seemed to come together in support of the concept. Committees, governments, conservation groups, environmental groups, children and their grandparents, and industry actively embraced the notion of Sustainable Development - excited about combining environmental, cultural, social and economics into a legacy for future generations.
We then had a guideline - a wonderful road map - on which to design policy. Nowhere did the Sustainable Development principles serve so well as in the world's forests.
Initially the buy-in was widespread. The forest industry around the world has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, supporting all-inclusive forest management - values, which are quite apart from the traditional values of industrial foresters.
Lately, however, a truth seems to be dawning on some of the environmental groups - a truth that says forestry and forest management are great fits for the Sustainable Development model. - Generating a fear amongst the more strident amongst them - that the social, cultural and economic factors really will weigh equally with the environmental - thereby denying their focused and solitary objectives of preservation for preservation's sake.
I shall not argue that this is a conscious position on their part - BUT it is a dangerous development and one you must be prepared to fight.
Using the experience of my own company, E.B. Eddy, let us now look at what is happening in Canada.
In a couple of weeksí time, my company, E. B. Eddy, will be recognising a significant event in our forestry operations. During National Forest Week in Canada from 3 to 9 May, we will be celebrating the planting of 100 million trees. Today the use of such a statistic may be considered somewhat limiting. We now talk about biodiversity, ecosystem management and are testing six criteria and 80 indicators under Canada's standards approval process.
We in the forest industry in Canada operate with public approval on publicly owned forest lands. If that approval was ever withdrawn we would cease to exist. Maybe that scenario is very alarmist and remote, given the economic strength of the industry, particularly in Canada. However, did the beef industry in Britain ever think that their livelihood would be virtually destroyed overnight? Make no mistake - it was public disapproval that hastened the demise of the British beef industry.
We are ever mindful of the need for public trust - to underline that mindset I am often reminded of those famous lines by Robbie Burns:
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
To earn that trust the industry is learning to think multi-dimensionally about its future - by balancing economic, cultural, social and environmental values.
An industry increasingly driven by voluntary initiatives rather than being dragged by regulations. For Sustainable Development is a journey - not a destination. And as that journey becomes successful you must remember
"that the toughest thing about success is that you have to keep on being successful"
Irving Berlin
The concept of sustainable development means the addition of a broader ecological base, many more values, and a broader community of people.
While the marketplace can generate expectations, it cannot define what the industry needs to do or how we should do it - that is, define the solutions. Nor can it determine good science.
Canada was the first country in the world to adopt national standards for sustainable forest management using a broad, multi-stakeholder process. The objective of these standards is to encourage forest managers to make continual and measurable improvements in their forest management and to ensure they have a workable plan for achieving sustainable forestry.
The standards were prepared by the Canadian Standards Association or CSA, a professional, independent body with a 75-year history of setting standards in 35 different fields.
Canadaís national sustainable forest management standards are designed to fit with emerging international standards and cover key environmental, economic and social values. Criteria and indicators associated with sustainable forest management are addressed in areas ranging from biological diversity to ensuring the security of resource-dependent communities. These closely follow the criteria for sustainability for non-European temperate and boreal forests, developed as part of the October 1993 international initiative known as the Montreal Process. These criteria are similar to those developed for European forests, as part of the Helsinki Process earlier in the same year.
The CSA standards were developed by a committee consisting of 32 voting and 20 non-voting representatives from academic and research organizations, governments and the forest industry, and special interest groups such as labour unions, recreationalists, consumer groups and aboriginal forestry representatives.
Environmentalists also participated. This, of course, was important to the success of the process. However, other environmental groups elected to pursue their own certification programme and declined the invitation to be part of the CSA committee. Fortunately, the process provides them with ongoing opportunities for input.
Broad public participation was critical to developing Canadaís national forest management standards. Consultations were held with special interest groups and, through a national advertising programme, general public input was solicited, resulting in 1500 requests for the draft standards. The standards were field tested and finally, last summer after two years of hard work, the committee members voted unanimously to approve the standards. On 26 September, the Standards Council of Canada approved them as National Standards.
The standards complement local regulations with a forest management system that focuses on long-term objectives for continual improvement. Ongoing public involvement remains a key requirement of CSA certification and will make forest managers visibly accountable for their on-the-ground performance in Canadaís forests.
Canada recognizes that everybody may not recognize its national standards - as valuable as they are - in international markets.
For that reason, Canadaís national standards are built on the same management system framework as the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardizationís ISO 14000 series environmental standards.
As a result of a determined effort on the part of 34 of the worldís forest nations led by New Zealand and including Canada, a technical report has been completed which provides additional information to help forest managers apply the ISO 14001 standard to forest management. The use of this report, in conjunction with ISO 14001, will help achieve international equivalency in the application of this standard to forest management and help forest managers build internationally agreed criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management into their own management systems.
While the Canadian industry is proud of its leadership role in the two programmes I have just described, Canada is mindful of the many initiatives being undertaken in other countries and internationally. Indeed, the Canadian forest industry is contributing to the efforts of more than a half dozen international agencies and processes, including the World Trade Organization, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The result, however, is that the forest products industry worldwide will be faced with a multitude of regulatory and voluntary systems for protecting forests and the environment as a whole. This could generate conflict and confusion among the public - and barriers to international trade in forest products.
Clearly, given this growing multitude of regulatory and voluntary systems, there is an urgent need for what I call the "highest global environmental common denominator" - that is, the development of an international forest convention, to serve as a catalyst for global consensus on sustainability issues. This, I believe, is the single greatest challenge in reaching for sustainable development for our industry internationally.
A global forest convention is needed to provide the necessary framework for addressing and rationally debating the many challenges associated with sustainable development. This is too important a matter to be addressed in the current piecemeal fashion. To achieve this, we believe there is a need to strengthen and unite the existing forest-related UN initiatives.
In June of last year, a UN general assembly special session reviewed progress in the implementation of the sustainable development programme of Agenda 21 that emerged from the UNCED meetings in Rio in 1992. It disappointingly concluded that little progress has been made in the intervening five years and postponed until at least 2000 the decision on whether to formally put in place a binding global convention on Sustainable Forest Management.
The forest industry needs to use its network of colleagues and contacts worldwide to bring influence to bear on this matter. To do otherwise poses the very real risk of having our ability to operate profitably determined by other interests whose priorities may well not be in harmony with the forest industryís needs.
Let me take a few moments now and step back from the world stage to take a closer look at what sustainable development and sustainable forest management has meant to one company in particular - the E.B. Eddy company - with which I have had the good fortune to be associated with for the past 37 years.
E.B. Eddyís Corporate Mission Statement says that, "all of our actions and those of our suppliers and customers will be consistent with the concept of sustainable development."
In 1992, we decided to put our "mission where our mouth was" and develop a document that addressed economic, social, cultural and environmental issues in an holistic manner rather than simply providing environmental information alone.
In our first report, we used six criteria of Sustainable Development:
• Resources used
• Efficiency of resource conversion
• Wastes generated
• Environmental effects
• Research activities and
• Socio-economics
These criteria worked well for evaluating manufacturing processes, but they were not efficient for evaluating the sustainability of our forestry practices.
In 1995, the criteria and indicators for sustainable forestry adopted by the Canadian Standards Association gave us the wherewithal to modify our approach. Thus we added:
• Conservation of biological diversity
• Maintenance and enhancement of forest ecosystem condition
• Conservation of soil and water resources
• Forest ecosystem contribution to global ecological cycles
• Multiple benefits to society
• Accepting societyís responsibility for sustainable development
This gave us the framework for the development of our "Roadmap for Sustainable Development". This roadmap provided us with a practical approach to measuring our progress using the general criteria and directly measurable components or "indicators". The report also allows the more adventurous reader to access the data in tabular format by referring to the appendices, which have also been formatted under the "roadmap" design.
The original sustainable forestry criteria and indicators that we have included in our sustainable development report will undergo substantial change as we move along the path of certification. In fact, we are currently working with a public advisory group to establish forest values that can then be accurately measured using forest science.
We anticipate that we can develop a generic sustainable forest management system for our flagship forest area - the Spanish Forest that has local forest values, goals, indicators and objectives consistent with our public and forest science.
This system will be equally applicable to any area or product-based system that may surface. We will be seeking registration by December 1998.
In the preface to our first report on sustainable development, I stated that our success in moving forward would first be recognized by others rather than ourselves. A recently released report from the United Nations Environmental Programme entitled Engaging Stakeholders has selected 100 of the best company environmental reports around the world and benchmarked them. And I am pleased to report that it has placed the Eddy company in the top quartile.
In Canada, our reports have met with recognition on three occasions with this being the latest.
Goals cannot be set lightly. We are seeing more thorough scrutiny of our reporting. Future reports will be met by increasingly rigorous analysis. Organizations must genuinely welcome such input and respond accordingly. Sometimes, a high, positive profile can be unfortunate. Any company, which forgets that the Sustainable Development debate can be a minefield, is in danger of losing its corporate legs.
Do not take that to mean that we should be wary of a more open approach; rather be aware that a simple "green-glossy" approach will no longer cut it with our critics.
The approach to the development of our status reporting on sustainable development is best summed up in the Latin phrase "Experto credite" - Trust one who has proved it. Public disclosure will invariably lead to more detailed operational analysis which leads to better measurement.
With better measurement, we can expect better management and, consequently, better performance. Only through the measurement of our actions can we show proof and only through the sharing of that measurement will we be trusted.
Remembering the words of Einstein when he said:
"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level we were at when we created them",
we have embraced the concept of Sustainable Development.
Its attributes are many as they relate to forest management:
1) People and forests are inextricably linked.
2) It suits emerging nations as well as highly developed ones.
3) There are provisions for adaptive systems.
4) It is responsive to large and small communities.
5) Aboriginal peoples are offered the hope of satisfying their needs.
6) Finally it is a road map that allows continual change in the social needs of people.
We must never - ever - allow any group in society to hijack the system. We must fight to keep the Bruntland Commission's ideas front and centre so that they serve us well and never vanish into oblivion.
Forty-three years ago, Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile (3:59:4) - a feat that many said would "never be conquered." In the years thereafter sub 4 minute miles became routine. This is a common attribute of mankind. What we once regarded as impossible becomes routine and commonplace.
In 2040, 43 years from now, what will become the routine and commonplace that we currently consider close to impossible to achieve in the world theatre of Sustainability?
Sustainable Development is a balancing act that demands a continuum of change and through that change the people of the world will not see their forests degraded.
Finally, remind those who wish not to recognize change that:
"Success is not final
Failure is not fatal
Change is a lifetime endeavour
Lombardi
If we all remember this the concept of Sustainable Development will not be hijacked by a few.
