Post on 07-Aug-2015
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Sustainable Lumber:
Where does the lumber really come from?
Sarah Campbell
Central Michigan University
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Independent Study
May 5, 2015
Introduction
Sustainability has become a business norm today. Companies are encouraged to
switch to the sustainable business model to ensure that they will have a long
lasting company in today’s tough market.
“A sustainable business or green business is an enterprise that has
minimal negative impact on the global or local environment, community, society,
or economy-a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line.”
The Triple Bottom Line was a phrase developed by John Elkington in the 1990s.
The sustainability leaders were looking for a new language to express an
expansion of the environmental agenda that sustainability had focused on (Enter
the Triple Bottom Line, 2004). This definition shows that there is a balance
between social, economic, and environmental impacts that companies have. The
TBL agenda focuses corporations on seven different drivers to ensure that their
company is operating as sustainable as possible. These include the markets they
operate in, the values that their company upholds, transparency to consumers of
their business, life-cycles of their products, partnerships between other TBL
companies, time management, and corporate responsibility within the company
(Enter the Triple Bottom Line, Elkington 2004). Companies usually have
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pressures from society to minimize their impact on the environment, which is one
of the main drivers of this TBL theory.
For example, you can apply these principles to local Michigan companies like
Urbanwood, Biewer Lumber, and Tri-County Logging among many others.
Lumber companies in Michigan are now turning to the sustainable harvesting and
focusing on the TBL. When looking into sustainable lumber companies, to my
surprise there are dozens. Now that there has been a push towards the “green
building” movement, contractors or builders want to learn more about where their
products came from and if they are harmful to the environment. Since the LEED
certification standards that were introduced in March of 2000, there has been a
great push by homeowners to make their homes green. Homeowners or builders
can get their home certified green by the United States Green Building Council
and which can also lead to tax credits from the government to lower your annual
housing taxes (USGBC History). With these incentives, more and more builders
have been converting to the alternative building style.
Michigan Forests are another important factor when companies decide to switch
towards the more environmentally friendly building. The logging industry in
Michigan is one of the largest producers of capita for the state. It supports
154,000 jobs valued at $14.6 billion dollars, this industry is very important to the
states income (Michigan Forest Products Industry Snapshot, 2015). Michigan is
in the top ten largest forests in the United States and is the largest landowner
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holding about 4.1 million acres of state forest, state parks, and other lands (SFI
Michigan, 2014). With the mass amount of land available for harvesting, these
forests need to be maintained and not overused. There also is a mass amount of
wildlife and recreation that use the forests. Hunting is another big recreational
activity for the residents in Michigan. Michigan ranks third in the nation for the
number of residents who hunt (721,000), behind Texas and Pennsylvania
respectively (Information about Hunters in Michigan, Sternberg). Without the
forests, the wildlife will eventually find another habitat up north to Canada or may
die off because of depleted forests. This will cause a major effect to the hunting
in Michigan along with a change in the ecosystem. There are more than 3500
species of plants and animals that are a part of the great lakes region (About Our
Great Lakes: Ecology). Some of the native animals are the black bear, fox,
moose, coyote, gray wolf, elk, and white - tailed deer, among various others
species. If these animals don’t have a place to live then they will eventually die
off.
The construction industry is one of the largest industries in the country employing
7.6 million workers (Construction in the United States, 2013). Construction is
always happening around us whether residential or commercial. There is
fluctuations of how much construction is maintained especially in 2008 for the
housing market crash, but it always is going on everywhere in the world. These
construction companies have the opportunity to ensure that they are harvesting
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materials while being environmentally conscious and ensuring that they are
making a profit by involving the Triple Bottom line in their business.
As a soon to be contractor and new business owner, I am going to make sure
that all the materials that I use for construction of the homes are green or not
harmful to the environment. From the lumber I use in framing, to the granite
countertops that are put into the home. But how do I really know where these
materials are coming from? One of the main issues I see today is that lumber in
construction stores is hard to track the chain of custody. Material in the store can
be said that it is sustainable lumber but do we really know that? Some big
corporations like Lowe’s or Home Depot say in their wood policy that they are
100% dedicated to ensuring the lumber they receive is sustainable. Here is an
excerpt from Lowe’s wood policy page:
In order to meet this goal, Lowe's will: Aggressively phase out the purchase of wood products from endangered forests as these
areas are identified and mapped. This includes an immediate ban on wood coming from the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia.
Work with vendors to encourage the maintenance of natural forests and environmentally responsible forest practices.
Give preference to the procurement of wood products from independently certified, well-managed forests. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is recognized as having the highest certification standards available today and will be given preference over other certification systems.
Work with our customers to increase the efficiency of wood use, including the promotion of wood reuse, recycling, and advanced framing techniques.
Work with our suppliers to increase the procurement of quality recycled, engineered and alternative products, when their environmental benefits are clearly demonstrated, including alternative fiber and tree-free paper products used for printing and packaging.
(Lowe’s Wood Policy)
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This policy may say that they are retaining a specific wood policy, but when I
went into the store and asked how they separate the lumber that is SFI or FSC
certified, the worker told me there is no way to know. All the material is
intermingled with the lower grade lumber. Since sustainable lumber is usually
more expensive than the traditional lumber, it is imperative that commercial and
private stores are able to track where their products come from. Contractors do
not want to be paying a premium rate for a low-grade material.
In this article, I will be focusing in on where the lumber comes from, how the
companies track the lumber, and what certification is out there for ensuring that
the lumber is sustainably harvested. I will also go into Michigan forestry and look
at what percentage of sustainable lumber really comes from Michigan. Finally I
will discuss the a couple lumber companies in Michigan to see how they ensure
that their products are sustainably harvested.
A Word from the Student
This report on sustainable lumber satisfies the main requirement for Independent
Study with Bruce Frost. During the semester the course is taken as an
independent course where I must research and come up with a topic to fulfill the
requirement for three credit hours. I chose to mainly focus on forestry in
Michigan. Michigan Forests are very important to because they not only host
recreation and wildlife, but they are a very large producer of money for the state.
The depletion of forest will drastically affect the ecosystem. I chose to study the
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forests and travel to Steelcase to see how major corporations deal with the
logging industry. As a potential licensed builder when finishing my degree, I will
be transitioning to green building of homes. When creating this case study, I
have chosen to focus mainly Michigan lumber companies and Michigan forestry.
Michigan Forests
There are approximately 20 million acres of forestland that supports the lumber
industry in Michigan (Forest Products Industry Overview, 2015). The land is
dispersed in State forests, commercial forests, national forests, and private
forests. The Michigan Forests are a very important industry in Michigan. They
supply about $14.6 billion dollars in economic impact to the state. There is about
4.59M acres of state owned land that is maintained by the state while there is
only 2.7M acres of Federal forests (Forest Products Snapshot, 2015). The
leading source of timber supply comes from Nonindustrial Private Forests which
is a whopping 64% compared to the rest of the forests (Michigan Forests
Products Industry Snapshot, 2015). If you were to look at the attached document
called “2015 Michigan Forest Projects”, it shows the different products that are
made out of the timber. Michigan made products include: veneers, upholstery
materials, overlays, laminates, exotic hardwoods, paper and pulp materials
among others. Michigan is dedicated to recreation, wildlife, and conservation but
is a major producer in the logging industry. There are about 800 logging and
trucking firms, and 300 primary manufacturers including sawmills, veneer mills,
pulp and paper mills, and engineered board manufacturers (Forest Products
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Industry Overview, 2015). In 2014 there were 891,488 cords of timber sold from
the Michigan State forests (State Forest Timber Sales, 2014). The amount of
timber sold is still even lower than in 2010 when the housing market crashed.
With these numbers it shows that the logging industry is a very big factor in
Michigan.
As mentioned above, there are more than 3500 species of plants and animals
that call the Michigan forests their habitat. If we were to destroy these habitats,
we would lose a lot of recreational and leisure opportunities. In 2013, there was
an estimated 661,788 hunters that spent 9.2 million days in the field (Deer
Harvest Survey, 2013). These numbers show that the hunting season is greatly
valued to residents in Michigan. With Michigan being the in the top 3 states for
hunting, it would be devastating to the hunters to lose all this wildlife. A lot of the
forests are also used for recreation that isn’t including hunting. For example four-
wheeling in the summer time and snowmobiling in the fall/winter. There are more
than 6,500 groomed snowmobiling trails in Michigan. The terrain takes you
through the state and national forests, and across 11,000 frozen lakes
(Snowmobiling, 2015). Michigan is one of the states that is used to the fullest
extent by all that live here.
By depleting our resources, it will be hard for
the state to come back and be a top leader in
forest production and harvesting. Michigan
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has some of the least harvested forests in the US but there are some areas that
experience forest loss (Facts, 2015). The Michigan forest products industry
creates about 12 million tons of wood. Each ton is then about $100 worth of
economic activity. That is about $1.3 billion of economic activity! (Facts, 2015).
Fortunately, the Michigan forests are growing very fast. Each year there is about
2.7 times more wood that is grown than harvested (Facts, 2015). Although the
forests are growing quickly, this does not mean that we should overharvest and
use bad forestry practices. Another positive is that the Michigan DNR and various
other lumber companies in Michigan have been onto the sustainability idea. The
DNR works vigorously to maintain the forests and make sure that they are not
used irresponsibly. Lumber companies like Plum Creek have devoted their whole
business to sustainability. They create products that are sustainably harvested
and they highly value the sustainability throughout Michigan and the country.
With the quick reproduction of forests in Michigan, it is safe to say we are way
ahead of other states when it comes forestry.
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)
In Michigan, there are tree farms dedicated to renewable forests. The
Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) Implementation Committee goes around
certifying lumber organizations and forests to ensure that they are sustainable
and renewable. The SFI label is one of the lead certifying product labels around
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the country for consumers looking for the eco-labels. About 72% of companies
agree that eco-labels contribute to better purchasing decisions (Sustainable
Forestry Initiative-Michigan, 2014). In
Michigan this is very important because we
don’t want to use up all our resources and
then end up running out and degrading the
environment. The SFI is a nonprofit
organization that is dedicated to promoting
sustainable forest management (About Us,
2014). This company focuses on the TBL by
ensuring that forest management is not harming the environment while creating a
profit to send back to the environment and maintaining a good look when helping
people. The certification process is based on principles to promote sustainable
forest management including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity,
wildlife habitat, species at risk, and forests (About Us, 2014).
There are two options to get certification labels, which goes to forest landowners
or the companies that don’t own the forests but want to purchase materials. The
second option or the Procurement or wood sourcing operations label allows the
companies to have the label so their customers are ensuring the products that
they buy are coming from a sustainable forest. This is also known as chain-of-
custody certification. To ensure that their materials are harvested and grown
sustainably, SFI will hire third party auditors to issue the company a certificate.
Figure 2 SFI Label
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To obtain these certifications, the companies or landowners must be audited by
the SFI. The SFI program participants must certify that the operations are to the
SFI Standards to receive the label (Certification, 2014).
The 2015-2019 standard is renewed every four years to make sure it is updated
and congruent with the new sustainability practices in the forestry industry. Some
standards include the chain-of-custody standard, the SFI fiber-sourcing standard,
and On-product labels. The fiber-sourcing standard goes to address the 90% of
the world’s forests that are not SFI program participants (SFI Standard, 2015).
The participants must show the raw material in their supply chain to ensure that it
is sustainable or certified SFI. The next standard is the chain-of-custody
standard. It is an accounting system that tracks forest fiber content through
production and manufacturing to the end product (SFI Standard, 2015).
Companies use the certification to communicate to their production partners and
even their customers that they have ensured the sustainable growth and
manufacturing of the products they use. Next we have the SFI on-product labels.
They are recognized globally as a leader in sustainable forestry products. The
SFI has a Certified Sourcing label and several chain-of-custody labels to place
on products. There is a label ID number on all labels that is unique to each
organization that applies for the use of the SFI label (SFI Standard, 2015). All
certifications are by third party auditors that are trained to certify forests and
products. The SFI is also the only forest certification standard in the world that
requires participants to support forestry research (Basics of SFI, 2015).
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Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is not the only certification process well known
around the nation. There is another certification process called the Forest
Stewardship Council. The FSC’s mission
is “to promote environmentally sound,
socially beneficial and economically
prosperous management of the world’s
forests” (FSC Mission and Vision, 2015).
Their mission statement goes along with
the triple bottom line principles of focusing
on the people, planet, and the economics.
The FSC has focused on ten main principles when promoting the forest
stewardship and certification process. These principles include the following:
PRINCIPLE #1: COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS AND FSC PRINCIPLES - Forest
management shall respect all applicable laws of the country in which they occur,
and international treaties and agreements to which the country is a signatory,
and comply with all FSC Principles and Criteria.
PRINCIPLE #2: TENURE AND USE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES - Long-
term tenure and use rights to the land and forest resources shall be clearly
defined, documented and legally established.
Figure 3 FSC Label
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PRINCIPLE #3: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS - The legal and customary
rights of indigenous peoples to own, use and manage their lands, territories, and
resources shall be recognized and respected.
PRINCIPLE #4: COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND WORKER’S RIGHTS - Forest
management operations shall maintain or enhance the long-term social and
economic well being of forest workers and local communities.
PRINCIPLE # 5: BENEFITS FROM THE FOREST - Forest management
operations shall encourage the efficient use of the forest’s multiple products and
services to ensure economic viability and a wide range of environmental and
social benefits.
PRINCIPLE #6: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT - Forest management shall
conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils,
and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes, and, by so doing, maintain
the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest.
PRINCIPLE #7: MANAGEMENT PLAN - A management plan — appropriate to
the scale and intensity of the operations — shall be written, implemented, and
kept up to date. The long-term objectives of management, and the means of
achieving them, shall be clearly stated.
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PRINCIPLE #8: MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT - Monitoring shall be
conducted — appropriate to the scale and intensity of forest management — to
assess the condition of the forest, yields of forest products, chain of custody,
management activities and their social and environmental impacts.
PRINCIPLE # 9: MAINTENANCE OF HIGH CONSERVATION VALUE
FORESTS - Management activities in high conservation value forests shall
maintain or enhance the attributes that define such forests. Decisions regarding
high conservation value forests shall always be considered in the context of a
precautionary approach.
PRINCIPLE # 10: PLANTATIONS - Plantations shall be planned and managed in
accordance with Principles and Criteria 1-9, and Principle 10 and its Criteria.
While plantations can provide an array of social and economic benefits, and can
contribute to satisfying the world’s needs for forest products, they should
complement the management of, reduce pressures on, and promote the
restoration and conservation of natural forests.
All of the information above was taken from the FSC website online. Today there
are more than 40,000 American family forests certified by the FSC (Why Forests
Matter). The certification process is important because they are trying to make
sure that future generations can also appreciate what we have for forests today.
The FSC has certified 33,620,860 acres of forest in the US and 166,079,560
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acres certified in the US and Canada (FSC Facts, 2015). This shows that the
FSC is a very prominent certification process nationally and internationally.
To get certified by the FSC there are a few different options. Like the SFI, they
certify forest management and the chain of custody. Another similarity to SFI is
that they use an independent FSC-accredited Certification Bodies. The certifiers
verify that all forests that are following by the requirements of the FSC. There are
about nine certifying bodies to certify forests and companies in search of the FSC
label. Something different than the SFI is that the FSC has the option for an FSC
mix label. This means that manufacturers can mix FSC-labeled products under
controlled conditions (Controlled Wood, 2015). As I mentioned before that when I
spoke to Lowe’s lumber yard employee, he said that they have no way of
knowing what product is certified or not. The controlled wood label could have
been implemented in the store that is why it didn’t matter that the wood was
mixed. This standard minimizes the risk of using wood products from
“unacceptable” sources in FSC-labeled products (Controlled Wood, 2015).
Another option that the SFI did not have is to minimize the costs to those that are
looking to certify their forests with the FSC organization. There is a group
certification option available. For example if there was a company that owned a
lumber mill, a lumber yard, and a couple forests, they could go under the group
certification to reduce costs so they can hold one certificate for all operations.
Normally you would need multiple certificates saying that each part of the
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operation is sustainable but under this clause, you would need only one
certificate.
Michigan Lumber Companies
Now that I have explained more about the Michigan forests and the certifications
out there for sustainable management, I would like to touch on the companies in
Michigan that are certified as sustainable. For a typical 2000 square foot home, it
takes about 13,000 board feet of framing lumber and 6200 square feet of OSB
Sheathing (Michigan Forest Facts, 2014). There is a lot of lumber that is used
that goes into building homes and if there is some way to decrease the impact
that the lumber companies have on the forests, we need to find ways now.
One company I found that is focused primarily on sustainability is called Plum
Creek. This is a national company but they do operate heavily in Michigan. They
provide recreational opportunities for residents by renting out land to those who
want to hunt, fish, or purely enjoy the land by camping. Plum creek is one of the
nation’s largest and most
geographically diverse private
landowners and safeguards more
than six million acres of land
(Working Forests, 2015). They are
owner to about 576,000 acres in
Michigan in 13 counties (Quick Facts,
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2015). Something that was rather alarming to me was that in the 576,000 acres
they own, only 6,900 are for conservation. I asked myself why would this be?
Maybe conservation means that they are keeping the land solely for no habitat
destruction or harvesting of trees. The types of trees in their forests are Maple,
Birch, Oak, Basswood, Aspen, Balsam, Hemlock, Pine, and Spruce (Quick Facts,
2015). The Plum Creek Foundation also provided $95,000 in financial support to
a variety of organizations in Michigan (Quick Facts, 2015). This shows that the
company is dedicated to giving back to the people. You can also say they are
integrating the triple bottom line into their business model by giving back to the
community while making a profit.
Not only does Plum Creek focus highly on conservation but also they are a big
sustainable forester. The company
partners with local and state governments to ensure they follow all Michigan
guidelines for forestry. They were the first company to receive the SFI
certification (Quick Facts, 2015). Plum Creek also focuses on reforestation rather
than just sustainable harvesting. In 2013, Plum Creek planted more than 290,000
seedlings in Michigan and more than 64 million nationwide (Quick Facts, 2015).
They currently sell half a million tons of forest biomass per year. Products
included are lumber, plywood, and medium density fiberboard. All these products
are sustainably forested material and are certified SFI products. Something I
noticed about Plum Creek is that they are a very transparent company. They
provide a bunch of information about their company and how they harvest their
Figure 4 Plum Creek Forests in Michigan
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products all the way down to the MSDS sheets for their products. This company
is 100% dedicated to the sustainability movement. By being transparent when it
comes to the products and how they operate their business, it can work to their
benefit. It will help them in the long run because people are able to look into
website or company and trust that they are running as sustainable operation. I
think this would be a great sustainable business model if I were a lumber
company in Michigan to follow.
Another lumber company that I found is a company called Biewer Lumber
Company. This company began about 50 years ago (Family of Companies).
Biewer Lumber is dedicated to providing the best products and services to their
customers that they can. Compared to the Plum Creek website, they are not SFI
certified but they chose the FSC chain of custody route. Biewer Lumber has been
running sustainable operations for about 20 years now (Why are we green, n.d).
As a just-in-time manufacturing company, Biewer Lumber does not keep a lot of
back stock in supply. The company makes all their products to order so they
don’t waste extra lumber material.
Biewer Lumber responsibly manages the whole lumber process. Biewer operates
sawmills in Michigan and Wisconsin. There are two Michigan mills and two in
Wisconsin (Sawmills, n.d). These sawmills are capable of producing more than
300 million board feet of dimensional lumber annually (Sawmills, n.d). To make
the process green, they use as
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much of the tree as they can. In the first step, they go through and choose trees
to be harvested instead of completely clear-cutting trees. This process they use
is called thinning. There are many overcrowded trees that are stressed and
competing with each other for nutrients, so by thinning out the trees, it allows for
a fully-grown tree in the end (Why are we green, n.d). All trees are then debarked
and the bark is used as fuel for the on-site boilers, which helps heat the kilns, or
sold as landscape mulch (Why are we green, n.d). By being a almost zero waste
company, this encourages contractors to build with this lumber because they
know that it is the best for the environment. There is a lot of quality material that
they produce also. Biewer Lumber specializes specifically in Red pine because
of the optimum appearance and the strength properties are ideal for construction
(Red Pine, n.d). It is also lighter after treatment, which helps minimize freight
costs to ship (Red Pine, n.d).
Like mentioned above with Plum Creek, the transparency of this company will
gain them a higher standing in the lumber industry. It will allow for customers to
trust the company in their product and know that they are not harming the
environment.
Conclusion
Deforestation and forest destruction is the second leading cause of carbon
pollution, causing 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions (Why Forests Matter).
If we do not protect our forests, then we will not have anything for future
generations to use. Although Michigan forests are growing at a rapid pace, it is
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very imperative that we still reforest and plant to make up for what we use.
Natural habitats for animals will be killed which will cause a decrease in wildlife in
the state. Not only will this happen but the recreation and leisure activities will
take a downfall. Michigan forests are a top producer of income for the state and
must remain that way.
As for the lumber industry, we must also follow the rules of sustainable business
and thinking when harvesting lumber for the construction industry. At 13,000
board feet used for a typical house and the housing market slowly increasing, we
can use up all the lumber that we have available. Lumber companies must follow
the transparency and the sustainable business model that Plum Creek Lumber
has put out lumber companies across the globe. We must be able to track where
our lumber has come from and if it was sustainably harvested or not. Whether it
is the Sustainable Forestry Initiative or the Forestry Stewardship Council, it is
very important to even take those first steps to set up the chain of custody
certification. Transparency and focus on the triple bottom line will allow
companies to gain more trust in their product. The sustainability in products must
start somewhere, so why not start with a seed.
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References:
Biewer Lumber. (n.d). Family of Companies. Retrieved from
http://www.biewerlumber.com/overview/
Biewer Lumber. (n.d). Why are we green. Retrieved from
http://www.biewerlumber.com/why-we-are-green/
Biewer Lumber. (n.d). Why Red Pine. Retrieved from
http://www.biewerlumber.com/why-red-pine/
Biewer Lumber. (n.d). Biewer Sawmills. Retrieved from
http://www.biewerlumber.com/why-red-pine/
Biewer Lumber (2015). FSC Certified Products. Retrieved from
http://www.biewerlumber.com/fsc-certified-products/
Detroit.com (n.d). Information about Hunting in Michigan. Retrieved from
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http://detroit.about.com/od/sportsrecreation/a/Information-About-
Hunters-In-Michigan.htm
DNR (2013). Michigan Deer Harvest Survey Report 2013 Seasons. Retrieved
from
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/MI_Deer_Harvest_Survey_2013_
459193_7.pdf
FSC (n.d). Mission and Vision. Retrieved from
https://us.fsc.org/mission-and-vision.187.htm
FSC (2015). FSC Facts. Retrieved from
https://us.fsc.org/facts-figures.219.htm
Lowe’s. Lowe’s Wood Policy. Retrieved from
http://www.lowes.com/cd_Lowes+Wood+Policy_545633779_
Michigan Department of Natural Resources (2015). Forest Products
Industry Overview. Retrieved from
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-30301_31023---,00.html
Michigan Forest (10/22/14). Michigan State Forest Total Timber Sales FY
1995-2014. Retrieved from
http://www.michiganforest.com/sites/default/files/resources/files/
2014%20State%20Forest%20Timber%20Sales.PDF
Michigan Forest Products Council (2014), Michigan Forest Products
Industry Snapshot. Retrieved from
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http://www.michiganforest.com/sites/default/files/resources/files/
2015%20Michigan%20Forest%20Products%20Industry%20Snapshot%20vs.
%202.pdf
Michigan Forest Products Council (2014). Sustainable Forestry Initiative-
Michigan. Retrieved from
http://www.michiganforest.com/resources/sustainable-forestry-
initiative-michigan
Michigan (2014). Snowmobiling. Retrieved from
http://www.michigan.org/snowmobiling/
NOAA.gov (n.d). About Our Great Lakes: Ecology. Retrieved from
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pr/ourlakes/ecology.html
Pine Forest Lumber Company (n.d). About Us. Retrieved from
http://www.pflumber.com/about-us/
Plum Creek (2015). Sustainable Forest Management. Retrieved from
http://www.plumcreek.com/sustainability/environment-our-
commitments/sustainable-forest-management
Plum Creek (2015). Working Forests. Retrieved from
http://www.plumcreek.com/working-forests
Plum Creek (2015). Quick Facts. Retrieved from
http://www.plumcreek.com/PlumCreek/media/Library/PDFs/Resources/Fact-
Sheets/MI-Fact-Sheet.pdf?ext=.pdf
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SFI Michigan (2014). About Us. Retrieved from
http://sfimi.org/about
Statista (2013). Construction in the United States. Retrieved from
http://www.statista.com/topics/974/construction/
SFI Michigan (2014). Certification. Retrieved from
http://sfimi.org/about-certification
SFI (2014). Michigan Forest Facts. Retrieved from
http://michiganforest.com/facts
SFI Standard 2015-2019 (2015). SFI Standard. Retrieved from
http://www.sfiprogram.org/sfi-standard/
SFI (2015). Basics of SFI. Retrieved from
http://www.sfiprogram.org/about-us/basics-of-sfi/
USGBC (n.d). USGBC History. Retrieved from
http://www.usgbc.org/about/history
Wikipedia (n.d). Sustainable Business. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_business