It was the first pulp and paper company in the Southern Hemisphere to obtain the social and environmental seal, which attests to the adoption of best global forest stewardship practices
 

São Paulo, May 23, 2022 – Klabin, Brazil’s largest producer and exporter of packaging paper and sustainable solutions in paper packaging, celebrates this month 25 years of its first certificate of excellence in forest stewardship obtained from the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) in 1998, when it became the first Brazilian pulp and paper company in the Southern Hemisphere to receive the certificate. The FSC® green seal obtained by Klabin attests to best forest stewardship practices and is an essential commercial prerequisite in the paper and packaging segments. The certification covers the chain of custody of industrial bags, paperboard and kraft paper at the Company’s units in Brazil and the Pilar unit in Argentina. Currently, 100% of Klabin’s forests are FSC® certified. 
 
The FSC® seal was launched in the mid-1990s after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (ECO-92) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, to promote responsible forest management based on the principles of ecologically correct, socially fair and economically viable operations and to identify, through the logo, products derived from responsible production chains so that consumers can make conscious purchase choices. The certification is based on a series of rules recognized internationally, called Principles and Criteria, which include sustainable forest stewardship, efficient use of multiple forest products and services, well-being of workers and communities, and the conservation of biodiversity. Over these 25 years, Klabin earned eight FSC® certificates, including forest management and custody, Forest, Pulp, Paper, Recycled Products, Industrial Bags, Packaging, Traders and Forest Stewardship Council.
 
“As a company with a renewable forest base for industrial purposes and which owns vast areas of preserved native forests, we understood early on the importance of adopting sustainable processes in our operations, as well as respecting the environment and the people living in the regions where we operate. We are proud of our pioneering trajectory with FSC and that we have inspired the sector in this direction,” said Francisco Razzolini, director of Industrial Technology, Innovation, Sustainability and Projects at Klabin.

Apart from its own work with its forests, Klabin encourages its business partners to implement good management practices in their areas, for which it has a few programs in place, including the Wood Supplier Certification Program, through which it provides technical and financial support to wood suppliers to get their areas certified. The initiative currently covers 55 municipalities in the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and São Paulo, benefitting over 1,900 producers and getting more than 118,000 hectares of areas certified.
 
“Klabin has built strong relations with local communities and strives to constantly improve these initiatives in order to expand the positive impact on the regions where we operate. Supporting our supply chain in obtaining the FSC® not only ensures the certification of wood sourced by us and, consequently, the adoption of best forest stewardship practices, but also enables these producers to sell wood with higher added value,” he said.
 
Klabin has important initiatives on its ESG agenda. In 2021, it became the first Brazilian company to obtain three FSC® certifications simultaneously for Ecosystem Services, for its actions at the Fazenda das Nascentes farm in the Serra da Farofa Complex RPPN in Santa Catarina. The same year, Klabin also became the first company to obtain the certification for its pine kraft lignin, a byproduct of the pulp production process, thus expanding its possible uses, which adds greater value to the product and expands the use of wood-based renewable solutions in new markets.
 
"Responsible forest management is important not only for the environment itself, but also for the economy and society," says Daniela Vilela, executive director of FSC Brazil. “When a company like Klabin, besides taking care of its own forest management, also encourages good practices among its suppliers and, through the chain of custody and ecosystem services, shows all the opportunities offered by the forest, that is very important for the market,” she added.
 
Ricardo Camargo Cardoso, certification coordinator at Imaflora, reinforces Klabin’s pioneering efforts in FSC certification in Brazil, which received the first forest stewardship certification for planted forests from the institute in the country. “Initiatives such as this are key to the journey towards the sustainability of companies and we believe we are aligned with Klabin in considering that the long history of this certification is not a definitive proof of good practices, but a strong commitment to the adoption and maintenance of responsible forest stewardship practices in accordance with the requirements of the FSC system,” he concluded.

#Sustentabilidade #Floresta #FSC