Sustainable forestry made a leap from the business world to consumer conscience when Innocent included the FSC logo on its kids' smoothies earlier this year. Jill Park reports on the significance of the move and the future for certified board

In May, Innocent launched its 180ml children's smoothies in Tetra Wedge cartons carrying the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) logo, to show that the material came from sustainably managed forests and manufacturers. It marked a watershed for the drinks company, whose packaging team had been lobbying Tetra Pak for years to supply it with certified board.

This is not to suggest that the subject of forestry certification and chain of custody was an issue that the carton industry had been ignoring. While Innocent was the first drinks company to use FSC Tetra Paks in the UK, Sainsbury's preceded this when it introduced chopped tomatoes in Tetra Recart packs in 2007.  Back in 2007, the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE), which represents the three main carton manufacturers Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc, commissioned ProForest, the independent consulting company, to write a report outlining the organisation's commitment to traceability.

The ProForest report was recently presented to the European Commission, updating it on the industry's progress on meeting targets laid out in the report. These targets included 100% chain of custody (CoC) certification for liquid packaging by 2015 and the extension of CoC from liquid packaging board mills to beverage carton manufacturing by 2018.

But what is forest stewardship and chain of custody and what have the different companies done to meet these targets? The two main schemes are FSC and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Both offer certification of forest management, so the buyer knows the wood fibre comes from a sustainably managed source, and then further certification for the CoC through which the material passes before it reaches the consumer, ensuring these channels meet stringent social, environmental and economic standards.

European acceptance
All three companies under the ACE banner proclaim to favour FSC over PEFC on the basis that it has NGO support from Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). "For us it's very important that what we do is accepted by our key stakeholders and that includes the European community," says Erika Mink, ACE president and director of global environment at Tetra Pak. "One of the main differences is that FSC has NGO endorsement and that means acceptance in the European market."

SIG Combibloc has already achieved 100% chain of custody certification at all its European production sites. Consequently, SIG cartons can bear the label ‘FSC Mix'. Tetra Pak has achieved FSC CoC certification for certain mills, and is committed to certifying all 43 of its global manufacturing sites by 2010. And Elopak's director of environmental affairs Sveinar Kildal says that the company is in the middle of the auditing process at the moment and "in time all operations will be certified".

Michael Hecker, head of group environment, health and safety at SIG Combibloc says: "For us, the FSC CoC certification of our production plants in Europe is a milestone on the road to certifying 100% of our plants worldwide in accordance with the FSC standards, in order to ensure for all carton packs complete traceability to responsibly managed or controlled sources."

All three companies say the driver behind this move to FSC is their commitment to sustainability. "It's about making sure we are doing all we can to ensure foresty is sustainable," says Elopak's Kildal. The UK and, perhaps, Brazil are leading the way in terms of pushing the certification label through Tetra Pak's Brazilian paper supplier Klabin.

Consumer understanding
But to what degree is the FSC label understood by the consumer? Tetra Pak's global forestry and recycling director Mario Arbreu believes that as yet, it is predominantly understood only by those inside the industry. Therefore the worth of including the logo on a pack could be questioned. However, Arbreu argues that in time this will change. "FSC is still a B2B logo, but I think that as the system expands, consumers will increasingly be exposed to it."

The impact increasing demand will have on supply is still a moot point. On the one hand all three carton manufacturers are moving towards full certification, but on the other, the auditing process takes time. SIG Combibloc marketing manager Cindy Haast is not concerned: "At the moment it's very easily available and we are not expecting any problems at that level."

Innocent may have led the way in terms of introducing the FSC logo to drinks packs, but it looks likely many drinks brands will follow. The carton manufacturers' commitment to 100% certification by 2018 suggests they are expecting demand to increase. Whether this will be driven by consumer awareness or suppliers' desire to be sustainable is unclear, but it looks like the logo is here to stay.

SMOOTHIE MOVE
It would take a keen eye to notice the introduction of the FSC logo on to Innocent's children's smoothies, but the move was a landmark for the company that had lobbied Tetra Pak on the matter for a number of years.

"We are pretty relentless in trying to drive suppliers to FSC," says Innocent's head of packaging Simon Oxley. He explains that the drinks manufacturer is also moving towards increasing its use of FSC label stock too. "It's just about pushing the suppliers to audit their supply chain," he says.

Next on the cards is to introduce one-litre cartons of smoothies in FSC certified board. "Tetra Pak is telling us we can have FSC accredited material by 2010," adds Oxley. The impact this has had on customers is neglible, he concedes, but "the bigger reaction was in the trade".