Demand for Responsible Wood and PEFC certification has increased steadily in recent years. This increase is matched by growing awareness for the potential role of forests in tackling societal challenges such as climate change. Today, the importance of certification resonates with the public at large.
Using the Responsible Wood and/or PEFC logos enable certified companies and forest owners to:
- demonstrate their commitment to sustainable development and corporate social responsibility
- attract environmentally and socially-minded customers and consumers
- help generate awareness and demand for products from certified forests
- highlight their engagement with sustainable forest management.
Who can use the logos?
The Responsible Wood and PEFC logos are registered trademarks and users must ensure that they are used accurately and verifiably, and that any claims associated with them are relevant and non-misleading.
Only companies and forest owners that have achieved Responsible Wood and/or PEFC certification, paid the necessary notification fee via their certification body, and have obtained a Logo Usage Licence are allowed to use the Responsible Wood and/or PEFC logos directly on a product or for product marketing.
The Responsible Wood and PEFC logos include a unique logo licence number for each certified entity. It is therefore possible to check the validity of an individual logo by searching the PEFC’s online database.
What products can be labelled with the Responsible Wood and PEFC Logos?
Only those products that are substantially made from wood or wood fibre that originates from forests certified under the Australian Forestry Standard or under a PEFC endorsed scheme.
To carry the Responsible Wood or PEFC logos, all products must have a minimum of 70% certified content. The non-certified content, which cannot exceed 30% must have passed due diligence process and meet requirements for Responsible Wood or PEFC “Controlled Source”.
Controlled Source material originates from non-controversial sources and meets the following requirements:
- Be legally harvested in accordance with local, national and International law, especially laws relating to biodiversity conservation, labour and indigenous peoples property and tenure rights.
- Meets all requirements of the Country of harvest in relation to trade and customs.
- Be free from genetically modified organisms
- Does not originate from native forest converted to other vegetation types including agriculture and plantations
Please check the right hand sidebar for documents providing more information about logo use.
Off-Product Logo Use (Category D)
Use of the Responsible Wood and/or PEFC logos by non-certified entitles (for example, commercial distributors/resellers, NGOs, media, educational organisations) for the purpose of educating, informing or promoting Responsible Wood and/or PEFC certification and sustainable forest management is possible only if:
- any such use if completely unrelated to a physical product(s) and
- a valid Off Product (Category D) Logo Usage Licence Application has been completed and approved, and the relevant fee paid.
N.B. These businesses are not forest managers and do not produce products which could be certified.
The Application form for an Off-Product Logo Use Licence contains information about the relevant annual fees.