Chain-of-custody certification means a company has a tracking system in place that records the possession and transfer of wood fiber from its origin to its end use, including the manufacturing, production and processing stages. Sonoco now holds all three certifications recognized within the industry: the FSC (SW-COC-003307), SFI (Pwc-SFICOC-294) and PEFC (Pwc-PEFC-294).

Specific standards must be met by companies seeking certification from any one of the three entities. These standards require internal audits, management reviews and annual audits conducted by an independent organization. The standards also require that specific procedures be implemented so that the flow of fiber through the manufacturing process is properly tracked and recorded.Sonoco began its program to achieve certification in July 2007. The process included internal mill audits, multi-site compliance audits and site surveillance audits. These audits were all completed by May 2008.

View the documents:
FSC certification (PDF)
SFI/PEFC certification (PDF)

Paper mills achieving certification:

Hartsville, S.C.		Brantford, Ontario, CAN		Menasha, Wis.		Trent Valley, Ontario, CAN		Sumner, Wash.
Lancaster, Ohio		Newport, Tenn.		DePere, Wis.		Holyoke, Mass.		Rockton, Ill.
Hutchinson, Kan.		Richmond, Va.		City of Industry, Calif.

Recycled rigid paper container plants achieving certification:

Norwalk, Calif.

Wapato, Wash.

Forest Park, Ga.

Orlando, Fla.

Carrollton, Texas

Suffolk, Va

About FSC
FSC is an independent, nongovernmental, not for profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world's forests. It provides standard setting, trademark assurance and accreditation services for companies and organizations interested in responsible forestry. Products carrying the FSC label are independently certified to assure consumers that they come from forests that are managed to meet the social, economic and ecological needs of present and future generations. FSC has offices in more than 45 countries.

About SFI Inc.
SFI Inc. is a 501c(3) nonprofit charitable organization, and is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program (www.sfiprogram.org), a sustainable forestry certification program that is internationally recognized and among the largest in the world. Across North America, 152.6 million acres (61.7 million hectares) are certified to the SFI 2005-2009 Standard, which is based on principles and measures that promote sustainability, including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk and forests with exceptional conservation value. The SFI Standard includes unique fiber sourcing requirements that promote responsible forest management on all suppliers' lands. SFI Inc. also has chain-of-custody certification, which is used to tell buyers how much certified fiber is in a specific product.

About PEFC
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) is a framework for the assessment and endorsement of nationals forest certification systems that have been developed based on internationally recognized requirement for sustainable forest management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification umbrella organization covering nationals systems from all over the world, delivering hundreds of millions of tons of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from currently more than 194 million hectares of certified forest. This is an area which is larger than the combined forest area of all European Union member states. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector, governments, trade associations, trade unions and nongovernmental organizations.

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