FSC is a certification system that allows the final consumer to recognize products manufactured from raw materials that come from properly managed forests, from an environmental, social and economic point of view. An FSC forest is a forest where cutting is controlled and does not affect the overall health of the forest.
Therefore, buying from an FSC certified company means buying a wood product or derived from it that does not contribute to the destruction of forests. This does not mean that an FSC product is more expensive, but simply that the purchase rewards a company that uses for its business a product of nature that it respects and tries to protect.
A wide range of forests around the world is FSC certified: from pine plantations in Scandinavia, to alpine fir and lric forests in Italy, to oak and beech forests in eastern countries, to tropical forests in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc.
68,486 hectares of FSC certified forest in our country, divided into 19 active certificates: a slight increase compared to 2019 (+3.21%).
Record numbers for the forest product supply chain in our country, which does not seem to know crisis and which registers a +10% for the second consecutive year: companies with active certificates of Chain of Custody (CoC) are now 2,831, out of a total of over 3,500 production sites involved.
Internationally, the FSC certified forest area in over 80 countries gains 21 million hectares, rising from 200,738,995 to 221,201,420 (+10%). Among the areas growing the most in EU and CIS are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Russia; on the African continent relevant the growths of the Republic of the Congo and Namibia, and of China and Turkey for Asia. Forest management certificates, on the other hand, increased from 1,668 for 2019 to 1,739 (+4.2%, +9.6% the figure for the Old Continent).
Increase also in the number of companies that have decided to certify or confirm their CoC certification (+10.9%), from 40,331 in 127 countries to 44,751 in 130 countries; as far as Europe is concerned, this number has increased from 19,850 to 21,601 (+8.8%): a sign of the expansion of the FSC certified products market, even in times of uncertainty and strong instability , and increasing demand from businesses and end consumers. In this context, Italy remains a leader at European level (in number) and second in the world.
Thousands of FSC branded product lines are available on the market, including indoor and outdoor furniture and furnishings, kitchen utensils, kitchen and printing paper, paper handkerchiefs, upholstery and flooring, frames and many others, including some non-woody forest products (rubber, nuts, etc.).