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| The Swedish PEFC cooperative has achieved a breakthrough with the large industrial forest enterprises over the past year.
At the end of 2003, there are now some 80 sawmills in Sweden that have been granted PEFC certification and have received a chain-of-custody certificate. The Swedish PEFC cooperative has also achieved a breakthrough with the large industrial forest enterprises over the past year.
The first major industrial forest enterprise to seek membership of the Swedish PEFC was Holmen Skog AB, which has a million hectares of forest land. Soon afterwards, Stora Enso and Korsn?s, which together have 2.1 million hectares of forest, also applied for membership. Both of these enterprises are already certified under the FSC, but for marketing reasons also wish to become certified under the PEFC scheme.
"Several of our major timber suppliers have chosen the PEFC scheme, which we consider to be a viable alternative to FSC" says Bj?rn Andr?n, Head of Forestry at Holmen Skog.
Several other industrial forest enterprises are now also considering certification under the PEFC scheme.
"I believe that PEFC has achieved a good deal of success and that we have established a credible and trustworthy scheme" says Folke Stenstr?m, Managing Director at the Swedish PEFC cooperative. "We have seen an increase in demand for PEFC-certified products in 2003, and we are expecting it to grow even more in 2004. We are now in a strong position to meet this call by the market for certified products."
Sven Lundell, chairman of Swedish PEFC, welcomes this dual certification. "As several of the largest industrial forest enterprises are now choosing certification under both schemes, this is bound to benefit coordination of the wood flow in the future" he says.
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