Certifications & Chain of Custody
Certified Standards
Forest Certifications
Forest certification is a voluntary tool that demonstrates West Fraser’s wood products are sourced from sustainably managed forests.
Third-party independent auditors from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®) verify that we have met high standards in key criteria for fibre sourcing and forest management. This includes the sustainable growing and harvesting of trees with the protection of habitat, wildlife, water and soil quality, plants and a wide range of other conservation goals.
SFI® is an internationally recognized sustainable forest management certification program. Its mission is to advance sustainability through forest-focused collaboration. The SFI® standards are rigorous, inclusive and support a transparent, continuous improvement process. There are over 140 million hectares (350 million acres) of SFI-certified forests in North America and tens of millions of acres positively influenced by the SFI Fibre Sourcing Standard.
To access more of our certifications and other documents in the U.K./Europe, please visit the West Fraser U.K. page for more information.
Western Canada
About 94% of Canada’s forest lands are publicly owned, and harvesting is only allowed through government-granted licences. West Fraser follows strict forest management requirements to maintain and renew government-granted harvesting rights in Canada.
All of the Canadian woodlands operations directly managed by West Fraser are independently certified to the SFI Fibre Sourcing and Forest Management Standard.
Eastern Canada and the United States
West Fraser does not directly manage forestlands in the United States and Ontario, where we purchase the logs needed for our operations. In these regions, all of our timber procurement meets SFI Fibre Sourcing Standards.
In the province of Quebec, where the provincial government has full responsibility for forest management, including reforestation, West Fraser maintains SFI Forest Management certification on behalf of the provincial government under a joint agreement of collaboration for approximately 2.6 million hectares.
Chain of Custody Certifications
West Fraser remains committed to diligent implementation of chain of custody standards, which assure customers and other interested parties that the wood fibre in our supply chain is responsibly sourced and complies with applicable laws, regulations and sustainable resource standards.
West Fraser maintains the PEFC (Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification) Chain of Custody of Forest and Tree Based Products – Requirements (PEFC ST 2002:2020) across all operations in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, Inverness, UK and Belgium. The Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) is a leading global alliance of national forest certification systems. PEFC endorses the SFI®.
West Fraser also maintains the SFI Chain of Custody certification across oriented strand board (OSB) operations in North America. West Fraser remains committed to the diligent implementation of these standard requirements. These chain of custody standards assure customers and other interested parties that the wood fiber in the supply chain used in the manufacturing process comes from sources that have a negligible risk of originating from controversial sources and comply with applicable laws, regulations and sustainable resource standards.
The Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) is another internationally recognized forest certification standard. West Fraser’s pulp operation and medium density fibreboard (MDF) mills are registered to the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC®) Standard for Chain of Custody Certification (Trademark License Code: FSC-C109677).
Our U.K. and European operations producing OSB, particleboard and MDF also hold Chain of custody certification. See the Europe tab below for more information.
Additional Certifications
West Fraser maintains certifications specific to our products. You can find details about additional product-specific certifications in the Products section of our site for each product we produce.