PEFC calls on Dutch government to engage in inclusive process on sustainable biomass criteria

27 November 2014 News

In an open letter to the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp, PEFC has called on the Dutch government to adhere to the basic principle of transparency in the development of sustainability criteria for solid biomass and to safeguard the interests of all societal stakeholders by returning to an impartial, independent, inclusive and participatory process that comprises all relevant stakeholders.

PEFC understands that a very significant role in the development has been given to the “Expert Group on Sustainability”, comprised of an exclusive set of stakeholders, namely Dutch government officials, Dutch power generators, and Dutch NGOs, which has been given the mandate to propose sustainability criteria for biomass for the Dutch government.

“We are surprised to learn that something as important as criteria for sustainable biomass affecting forests from around the world appears to be negotiated by an exclusive group of Dutch stakeholders behind closed doors, without participation of significant and directly affected stakeholders such as forest landowners, who manage said forests for biomass, and forest certification systems such as PEFC, which provides independent and credible assurances that said forests are sustainably managed,” said Ben Gunneberg, Secretary General of PEFC. “Sustainability requirements must be developed through inclusive processes, and just as the Dutch government rightly expects certification systems to do so, stakeholders rightly expect the Dutch government to also employ inclusive processes.”

PEFC calls on the Dutch government to start adhering to the basic principles of transparency of such processes by providing full public disclosure of the current and past work of the Expert Group on Sustainability and to move forward from hereon in a transparent process that safeguards and recognizes the legitimate interests of all societal stakeholders through an impartial, independent, inclusive and participatory process that comprises all relevant stakeholders.

PEFC is the world’s leading and most trusted forest certification system and represents millions of landowners certified to PEFC’s globally recognized Sustainability Benchmarks, which are widely accepted internationally as well as nationally, in countries such as the Netherlands through the Timber Procurement Assessment Committee (TPAC), as delivering sustainability in forest management. The majority of globally traded fiber from sustainable forest sources is certified to PEFC.