On the Floor

These days in the world of paper and print, one of the most common acronyms you come across is FSC. You may have seen the FSC logo on packaging in your local grocery store and if you're doing any kind of printing it will probably seem ubiquitous.

So what is FSC?

I think about 5 or 6 years ago, I remember beginning to hear the term FSC certified to describe certain papers that were becoming available to designers through our paper merchants. FSC stands for Forestry Stewardship Counsel.

Here's the blurb from FSC Canada's website...

 

So essentially, FSC is a watch-dog over the forestry industry. But it only works if consumers demand more environmentally responsible forest management. There are other certification bodies, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes, (PEFC). But there seems to be agreement that FSC represents the ˜gold" standard of certification.

Oh, and FSC doesn't just certify paper manufacturers and mills, they also certify printers, but I'll get to that in a later post.

First, here's a link to a simple but effective video that I thought introduced the subject quite well. If you're looking for a reason to pay attention to the FSC designation, you may find it here ... . And maybe this kind of awareness campaign explains the growing number of requests from our clients for us to pay attention too.

Stay tuned ... here's my tentative list of future topics:

My main goal here is to make more informed choices in our print buying practices. And that will no doubt allow us to make more confident recommendations to our clients. That's the hope anyway.