Testing the Market Value of Certified Sustainable Lumber

Independently certified softwood lumber from North American forests is being market-tested for the first time this summer by Home Depot, Inc. White spruce 2x4s will be sold in Arizona and ponderosa pine shelving in southern California, both sporting labels with Collins Pine’s sustainable forestry scorecard from Scientific Certification Systems (SCS). In the certification and rating process that was completed this Spring, the 92,000-acre Collins Almanor Forest operation was evaluated by SCS based on criteria in three categories: sustained yield, ecological health of the forest, and social values. Scores between 80 and 90 were achieved in all three categories. A combined score over 60 qualifies an operation for SCS’s “well-managed forest” designation.

The Collins Pine mill at Collins Almanor Forest gets about half of its logs from CP’s own land and half from federal lands. As forestry practices on federal lands were not part of the certification assessment, only lumber from logs harvested on CP’s holdings can carry the SCS report card. Larry Potts, Jr., Vice President and General Manager of CP, explained that spruce and ponderosa pine represent most of the mill’s output from CP land, so they will keep separate inventories and label only those two species.