Created in partnership with the American Forest Foundation, Forest in Focus is an innovative platform to identify risk in forest product supply chains and provide opportunities to achieve conservation. The tool gives users like Sappi the business intelligence to help define, measure, and communicate their commitment to sustainable forest management to consumers, shareholders and other stakeholders.
Sappi is investing in this initiative as a founding member because we see significant value in using this tool to assess the actual health of our wood baskets, using trusted public data from sources, including the U.S. Forest Service. The tool will be particularly useful in assessing the health of forests belonging to small landowners, who typically lack the resources to secure third-party certification.
In the future, we also see great potential in the platform to assess carbon sequestration and storage potential of various woodbaskets following sustainable forest management principles. If this platform succeeds to create incentives for small holders to keep forestlands forested, then it will enhance the power of forests to mitigate climate change.