Being an eco-conscious consumer in 2011 means always being confused. And the lesson of the Obamas' swing set is instructive, because it shows that behind that confusion lays the insidious corporate strategy known as greenwashing.
Both the FSC and the SFI purport to judge whether a wood product can be deemed environmentally friendly. (As one advocate put it, think of them as battling for the right to be the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, only for forests.) Both feature green-tree logos on their websites, got their start in the mid-'90s, and are nonprofits that play up the independent nature of their environmental assessments. But only one of the two groups is funded primarily by the same timber industry it's supposed to be evaluating.
Kevin P. Casey
Kevin P. Casey
Related Content
More About
According to a report released last year by ForestEthics, a group devoted to protecting endangered woods, SFI has the admissions standards of a diploma mill. Of 543 audits of SFI-certified companies since 2004, the report found that only one lumber-cutter was denied the group's eco-label. The reason: The company had, among other minor "violations," failed to join the timber industry's largest trade association.
SFI claims it has a well-rounded, environmentally friendly Board of Directors. Yet, at the time of the report, two of its members representing "the environmental sector" looked like anything but friends of the Earth. Michael Zagata, a former oil-company executive who still sits on the board as a representative of the Ruffled Grouse Society, was once New York Governor George Pataki's Commissioner of Environmental Conservation. But he resigned after only 22 months, following what The New York Times described as "a series of actions favoring industry over the environment." Former SFI board chairman Marvin Brown had a similarly embarrassing end to his tenure as Oregon State Forester, a job he left after his department was accused of tolerating violations of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. (Also on the board: the CEOs of Weyerhaeuser, headquartered in Federal Way, and Plum Creek Timber Company, based in downtown Seattle.)
On top of all that, the report also found that SFI doesn't require chain-of-custody tracking, meaning it doesn't actually know where half of its wood comes from—which makes it hard to determine whether that fresh pine was cut in a sustainably grown forest or out of someone's backyard—and lets companies stay certified even when they violate its extremely lax regulations.
So why is any of this important? Because being green in 2011 means big business. Half-a-trillion dollars' worth, if you believe the high end of the estimates. And SFI's ability to confuse the marketplace by adding another acronym to the mix doesn't do anyone any good, especially the forests. After all, if the First Family can get tricked, what hope do the rest of us have?
Doublespeak Dave
Call it cynicism. Call it politics as usual. But whatever you call it, don't forget that the leaked audio of Rep. Dave Reichert disinheriting the environmental votes he still touts as political accomplishments is a classic case of ecohypocrisy.
Reichert thought he was among friends last May when he gave a speech during a meeting of Republican precinct-committee officers at Orting High School. In a secret cell-phone recording eventually leaked to the media, he even went so far as to ask "Are there any reporters in the room?" and "All of us here are family, right?" before explaining to his political foot soldiers why, despite all evidence to the contrary, the former King County Sheriff first elected to Congress in 2004 was actually an EINO—Environmentalist in Name Only.
"If you want to hold on to this district," Reichert told the crowd, "there are certain things that you must do."
What are those things? For Reichert, it meant disowning the Wild Sky Wilderness, a piece of legislation—that he co-sponsored—which protected more than 100,000 acres in the Western Cascades, the first federally designated wilderness created in Washington since 1984.
At the 2007 announcement to introduce the Wild Sky legislation, Reichert sounded honored to have the opportunity to preserve such a pristine landscape. "I am so pleased to be working with a bipartisan, collaborative coalition so dedicated to this conservation effort," he said.
Among his "family," however, Reichert portrayed his sponsorship of Wild Sky as a shrewd maneuver meant to discourage environmental groups from donating millions to any challengers. The legislation was a "done deal," he said, long before he ever got to it. "This is a 50/50 district," said Reichert, referring to the moderate Eighth he represents. "There are certain moves, chess pieces, strategies I have to employ."
Of course, once the audio became public, Reichert insisted that he played the game with his heart, not his head. "All you have to do is look at my voting record," he told The Seattle Times. "I have been a staunch supporter of protecting the environment."
Coal Comfort
Washington, like most states, has a complicated relationship with coal. Last month, a deal that had been in the works for years finally went through when Gov. Gregoire and TransAlta, the Alberta-based operator of a plant in Centralia that is the state's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, agreed to shut down the company's 470-foot smokestacks and convert to natural gas by 2025.
