Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. (President: Takahiko Miyoshi), Japan’s leading paper and pulp manufacturing company and a core member of the Nippon Unipac Holding Group, commenced production of the first forestry products in Japan to be certified by Sustainable Green Ecosystem Council (SGEC) on March 23. The first product in the series is a pallet for paper transportation (*1) manufactured at the Hina Mill of Daishowa Kohrin Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Sapporo, Hokkaido, President: Yoshihiro Abe), which is a subsidiary of Nippon Paper Industries. The pallet is designed to be a reliable tool of distribution for customers as well as eco-friendly paper products from Nippon Paper Industries. It will be used for the transportation of paper products manufactured by Nippon Paper Industries mills in the Fuji district.

The material for the pallet is thinned wood from the Kitayama Forest, a forest owned by Nippon Paper Industries with an area of 670 hectares in the city of Fujinomiya in Shizuoka, which was the first forest to acquire certification from SGEC in December last year. The Shizuoka Business Division of Daishowa Kohrin recently established the separation and labeling system for the certifying process of manufacturing and distribution of forestry products produced in certified forests, to become an SGEC-certified business enterprise on March 16. Consequently, its products are allowed to mark the SGEC logo.

Striving to establish sustainable corporate activities that are compatible with the environment, Nippon Paper Industries is on track to acquire forest certification for all Company-owned forests in and outside Japan by 2008. In Japan, it is expected to achieve forest certification from SGEC for all Company-owned forests, with a total area of 90,000 hectares. The Company has started with the pallet for paper transportation in its quest to promote forest products based on Sustainable Forest Management. It is currently working to develop “houses with SGEC forest certification,” aiming to do that within this year in collaboration with Kikuchi Kensetsu Co., Ltd., (*2, Head Office: Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, President: Yoshiichi Nakao), a company that is highly reputed not only in its local region but also in the capital Tokyo for its advanced technical capabilities in traditional Japanese construction methods and for its establishment of low-cost housing that exclusively use hinoki (Japanese cypress) from forests in Japan.

As a scheme that enables consumers to have confidence in the products provided by producers, SGEC promotes a “forest certification system” for accrediting Sustainable Forest Management and a “separation and labeling system” for controlling manufacturing and distribution management. Forestry products that meet the criteria in the two systems are entitled to mark the SGEC logo as SGEC-certified forestry products. And by selecting products with SGEC logo, consumers can support Sustainable Forest Management.