FSC celebrates sustainable furniture: FSC celebrates sustainable wood-furniture. This is the claim that inaugurates the first European edition of the competition created by the Forest Stewardship Council®, an international NGO that promotes the responsible management of the world’s forests, to recognise and reward companies based in Italy, San Marino, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia) or Poland that have made products with FSC-certified wood in the last three years. The first two editions, which took place at the Italian national level in 2019 and 2020, have already awarded twenty excellences of the sector.
This year, the competition expands to a European scope: 12 prizes to be awarded, divided into three categories: indoor (Home-Living, Home-Office, Office, Retail and Public spaces furniture), outdoor (Outdoor furniture for Home and Outdoor furniture for public spaces) and special prizes (CSR, Green Award, Communication, Labelling and Small business); evaluations will be entrusted to a special committee made up of members and representatives of FSC national offices.
The competition is the result of the work that the Forest Stewardship Council has carried out in recent years in the wood furniture sector, especially in Europe, raising awareness among companies and the general public on the choice of raw materials and products of forestry origin from sustainable management, and intercepting an increasingly consolidated trend: in Europe (Data: FSC International, April 2021) there are in fact 20,082 companies operating in FSC-certified supply chains and 4,863 of these are active in the wood furniture sector (3,756 of these are for indoor furniture and 2,032 for outdoor furniture). The countries with the highest number of certifications in the furniture sector are Poland (828), the United Kingdom (731) and Italy (551).
As far as Italy is concerned, out of a total of 2,942 certificates, 502 are registered for indoor categories and 104 for outdoor. The attention of companies in the sector towards sustainability is evident if we consider the growth trend of certificates, which have increased in five years from 286 to 502 for indoor furniture and from 54 to 104 for outdoor furniture.
“Demand is being driven above all by market demand and a new, greater attention on the part of consumers, who are increasingly looking for information on the origin of materials, production processes and socio-environmental impacts when making purchases,” comments Alexia Schrott, Marketing Manager of FSC Italy and coordinator of the FSC Furniture Awards. “This is why we decided to identify, recognise and reward the commitment of European companies that are active in this area.
Entries for the FSC Furniture Awards were open from 18 May to 14 October. The final awards ceremony is taking place online tomorrow, Thursday 25th November at 10:30am CET via live stream on the Zoom platform, and is beginning with a roundtable discussion on the sustainable wood supply chain in furniture with FSC International, forest owners, NGO representatives, industry representatives and journalists. In attendance will be Jeremy Harrison, Chief Markets Officer FSC International; Diego Florian, Director FSC Italy; Zoran Tintor, SE Forest management, Srbijašume; Rune Jungberg Pedersen, Communications and CSR, JYSK; Moderator: Oliver Heath, Designer.
Registration to attend the event: bit.ly/FSCFA.
For more information and the event programme, please visit the official website www.fscfurnitureawards.org.
