At SunDance, it’s not enough to just say that we care about sustainability. Sundance has chosen to obtain certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC® C155908) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®) and they are integral to our environmental initiatives. Without healthy forests, our environment, society, and the economy would be at serious risk. Learn about these organizations, certifications, and how they’re helping printing companies like SunDance be more sustainable.
The FSC® is an independent non-profit that promotes “environmentally sound, socially beneficial and economically prosperous management of the world's forests.” The FSC offers the Forest Management Certification and the Chain-of-Custody Certification to improve forest management and supply chain practices, respectively. On-site audits are performed by third-party certifiers to ensure the integrity of the FSC’s standards.
We recently renewed our Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certification which means SunDance is an official FSC-certified printer for paper-based print products (e.g. marketing materials, packaging, labels). To obtain the CoC certification, an Independent FSC-accredited certifier must verify that the company’s chain-of-custody operations meet the FSC’s principles and criteria.
Overview of the CoC certification process:
Only companies that have FSC certification are allowed to use the FSC’s trademarks and labels to promote their products. FSC certification labels help consumers identify products that come from responsibly managed sources. To learn more about the FSC see https://us.fsc.org/en-us.
SFI® is an independent non-profit organization that promotes sustainable forest management. Its mission encompasses a variety of responsibilities such as maintaining forest productivity and health; protecting water quality, biological diversity, and special sites; providing training and education; supporting research, and broadening sustainable forestry through outreach and community involvement. SFI sets three standards which are third-party on-site audited by accredited certification bodies:
The SFI program has on-product labels to help consumers identify products that support responsible forestry. See more information at https://www.forests.org/labels-claims-and-global-label/. The SFI Certified Chain-of-Custody labels, in particular, communicate the use of fiber from certified forests or certified sourcing or recycled content. The labels also indicate that the product doesn’t contain controversial sources and the content is calculated using one of these three approaches: physical separation, average percentage, and the volume credit method. Only companies that have SFI certification are allowed to use the SFI trademarks and labels to promote their products.
In addition to our Chain-of-Custody certifications from FSC and SFI, SunDance has also implemented a variety of efficiency and sustainability initiatives. We’re the first Sustainable Green Partnership (SGP) certified offset printer in Florida and received a Certificate of Sustainability from Applied Materials Trading in 2018 for our recycling efforts. Whatever the future holds, sustainability will continue to be a core value for our printing company.
Contact us today or request a quote to get started with sustainably-sourced print products!