Increase area of State and Federal Concessions and FSC certified forest concessions 

In July 2021 a letter signed by more than 30 progressive European Importers was send to Brazilian forest authorities and NGO´s and An Amazon Initiative gained interest and momentum.  

Letter content

  • Timber of good and sustainable origin and non-destructive logging methods. 

  • Forest management practices which sustain long term forest production. 

  • FSC certified timber, including more lesser-known timber species. 

In November 2021 an online Business Encounter was held about how European Importers can drive more certified area, with participants from across the forest and timber sector as well NGO´s from Europe and Brasil and one conclusion was clear:  

An International precompetitive collaboration involving Importers, Producers and NGO´s is needed. 

Webinar content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyfQSm1jYg 

An Amazon Initiative will continue activities gathering support, increase the level of knowledge and initiate business encounters between the Industry and NGO´s on topic relevant for the promoting of responsible forestry in the Amazon. 

In June 2022 An Amazon Initiative facilitated an interesting debate at Carrefour du bois in Nante with Aimex , Lamapa , Probos and FSC. An Amazon Initiative - Debate at Carrefour du Bois- Highlights (linkedin.com) 

In 2023 a new Business encounter webinar will be taking place with increased focus on how to promote Sustainable timber production in the Amazon. 

Life Cycle Inventory Data on timber Supply Chains 

Life Cycle Inventory Data on timber Supply Chains 

Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Data on emissions and waste from timber supply chains is a prerequisite to produce the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) required to enable producers and importers to make Environmental Products Declarations (EPD) required by the European construction sector. 

The EPD´s are required to make Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) on anything from housing to large scale construction under the EU Energy Performance and Building Directive (EPBD) or Green Building councils (eg. DGNB). This is an important contribution to the reduction of GHG´s from the construction sector to meet the Paris Agreement. 

 The requirement for LCI data and LCA´s is however also potentially a serious market barrier for the tropical timber since the production of the fundament- the LCI data requires organisation, know how and funding.  

An Amazon Initiative is working to break this potential market barrier through two projects: 

Project 1. Building network and Capacity. Uncovering legislation, Product Category Rules and Standards.  The aim of this project is to setup a validated methodology for retrieving LCI data and produce Templates for the data collection from FSC certified tropical timber value chains. 

Project 2. Based on the results of Project 1 An amazon Initiative will conduct a Proof of Concept on representative value chains in the Amazon in order to produce LCI data on the timber production from FMU via sawmill to the Port of shipment. This includes IPCC Data on Land Use Land Use Change on Forestry (LULUCF).  

 The project is focused on keeping the methodology simple, the tools low tech and the operating costs low in order to make I accessible for SME´s and community forestry as well.  

The validated and tested methodology, the templates and the LCI data will be open source and available for all FSC operators.  

Improving Land Use Land Use Change and forestry data 

The IPCC Data on Land Use Land Use Change on Forestry (LULUCF) is by default generic data and as such not as accurate of they were site specific. The responsible forest management performed under the Brazil forest code and in FSC certified FMU´s should maintain the forest as a carbon sink.  

Proving this could improve the data on the Life Cycle Inventory assessment (LCIA) and as such showcase the benefits of good and responsible forest management. For this we need better data. 

FSC is currently conducting 6 Proof of Concept Studies (PoC) worldwide, one in in Brazil using the Full Land Use Integration tool (FLINT) see https://moja.global/flint/ 

The Proof of Concept (PoC) belongs to the initial stage of the technology roadmap developed by FSC. The aim is to employ and test FLINT on FSC-certified land (and counterfactual land in some cases) to explore three key research questions for FSC: 

  1. What are the estimated carbon stocks and fluxes (in tCO2e), including natural disturbances and Harvested Wood Products, for a certified forest? What does it take to produce estimates for these at the FMU level? This will prove the FLINT tool can be the basis for the Impact Data system we will invest
    in. It covers standing stock of aboveground biomass.

  2. Are there any significant differences in carbon stocks and fluxes between a certified and non-certified forest? If so, what are they? It covers the impact of harvesting versus set aside for conservation.

  3. Does FSC certification have any measurable/significant effect on deforestation and degradation? Deforestation includes forest degradation including comparative rates of activity and their carbon stocks. Degradation will be modelled as a loss of tree canopy cover that is not deforestation. 

 An Amazon Initiative has facilitated contact between FSC and partners on Brazil to conduct the PoC and is following the project hoping to find data to improve the generic LULUCF data on responsible forest management. 

Enhanced Supply Chain Integrity (ESCI)  

Retrieving LCI data on emission from timber supply chains in the Amazon is performed partly by utilizing basic smartphone technology to record photos of operations and machinery throughout the entire supply chain. 

This information, if recorded and handled properly is of course valuable for a number of actions potentially benefiting forest managers, producers, imports and certifying bodies. 

  • Enable a more cost effective third party verification of the LCI data collection (requirement) 

  • Contribute to remote Chain of Custody auditing of timber supply chains, helping importers in their Due Diligence on legal origin and make FSC CoC certification potentially more Cost effective. 

  • Connect the dots of the CoC information of the existing Brazilian DOF System with the FMU GPS data of the AUTEX/AUTEF and thereby enable Operators to document time and place of harvest as required by the coming European Deforestation regulation (EUDR) 

This project will further develop as lessons are learned collecting, and handling data from the supply chains.