A major change to the structure of the SFI 2015-2019 Standards and Rules is the establishment of three standalone standards:
- The Forest Management Standard is established with requirements including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk and forests with exceptional conservation value.
- The Fiber Sourcing Standard including measures to broaden the conservation of biodiversity, use forestry best management practices to protect water quality, provide outreach to landowners and utilise the services of forest management and harvesting professionals.
- The Chain of Custody Standard tracks the percentage of fibre from certified forests, certified sourcing and recycled content through production and manufacturing to the end product. Organisations can use physical separation, average percentage or volume credit methods to track and communicate their chain of custody claims.
Forests certified to the SFI Forest Management Standard cover more than a quarter billion acres (100 million hectares), stretching from Canada's boreal forest to US South.
