Members of the US Green Building Council may vote next year to accept other wood certification systems than the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system. LEED officials plan to introduce their own sustainability
benchmarks for wood and to accept any certification system that meets their requirements.

Currently only FSCcertified wood use receives credit in the LEED system. While choosing FSC-certified wood currently provides only a single point in the LEED point system, interest is high in any change to the LEED system. Green building could grow from just 2% of the total construction market in the US in 2005 to up to 25% of all commercial and institutional building starts and 20% of total residential starts by 2013, according to a report by McGraw Hill (“2009 Green Outlook: Trends Driving Change”).

In a separate development, lawyers for Forest Ethics filed complaints about the credibility of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) with the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, according to the New York Times. 72 million hectares of forest are SFI certified in Canada and the US, while about 40 million hectares are FSC-certified (FSC June 2009, SFI August 2009).

New sustainability standards for doors and wallboard The company UL Environment announced in September that it is heading the development of sustainability standards for doors and wallboard, including fibreboard, mineral board, door frames and associated hardware.
These standards will be based on life cycle assessment, an analysis of environmental impacts over the product’s life cycle, and they will be designed for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) process. The standards’ purpose is to help architects and builders chose sustainable products.