The Certification Process
Certification involves a detailed on-site audit of a company’s processes and procedures by a third party certification firm working on behalf of the sponsoring environmental organization.
Being certified can have two meanings:
- First, a company’s internal processes and procedures can be certified that they track and account for the chain of custody of certified paper fiber from the forest through to the final product’s customer invoicing.
- And, secondly, certification can apply to a specific SKU or product from a company with certified processes.
A company can be certified without having any certified products, so it’s important to review and understand individual environmental claims closely. Additionally, a company’s certifications must be audited and updated once a year to remain in effect.
PM Company has three different forestry certifications, an achievement that took a coordinated team effort. In addition to creating an extensive set of policies and procedures as described above, Purchasing made numerous plant visits to review the certification policies and procedures of key fiber suppliers to further assure that the paper fiber PM Company purchases is indeed certified.
To learn more about sustainable paper practices and the certification process, please download our “Certified Sustainable Paper Practices” piece (PDF). |
