PEFC Austria Files Complaint Against Holzindustrie Schweighofer
EIA has issued the following statement:
Following company claims that undercover footage from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) showing officials accepting illegal wood was "unfounded", the Austrian-based forest products company Holzindustrie Schweighofer now faces a formal complaint on compliance from the global forest certification organization PEFC.
In a letter released today, PEFC officials call for an urgent investigation into allegations that Holzindustrie Schweighofer has sourced timber illegally. Citing the EIA video released earlier this year and investigations by the Romanian Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests that noted irregularities in the company's operations, PEFC requests that the relevant certifying organization, Holzforschung Austria (HFA), review its previously-issued certificate of compliance to Holzindustrie Schweighofer.
In the letter, PEFC Austria "notes with concern allegations that the sourced timber may be connected with illegal activities" and that "PEFC Austria requests HFA to urgently investigate a) the potential use of such timber in PEFC certified or claimed products and b) Holzindustrie Schweighofer's correct implementation of the PEFC Chain of Custody standard and to make the findings of the investigation available as soon as possible."
The PEFC complaint comes after a recent "special audit" carried out by certifier HFA at the request of Schweighofer in response to EIA's findings in April this year. The audit found no violations and confirmed the PEFC certificate. In a press release in June the company CEO, Gerald Schweighofer, used his good standing with the certification body of PEFC as the chief reason why evidence of accepting illegal wood should be ignored: "The audit completed now once again verifies that our company meets the international standards. The allegations of an environmental protection organization have proved to be unfounded and been entirely disproved."
"The certification body that the company has put forward as proof that they have done nothing wrong has now lodged a formal and public complaint against them," said Alexander von Bismarck, Executive Director of EIA. "We hope that this helps encourage the company to urgently focus on improving its practices, rather than discounting clear evidence."
In April, EIA released a video documenting how Holzindustrie Schweighofer willingly and knowingly accepted illegally harvested timber and incentivized additional cutting through a bonus system.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150806006699/en/
Contacts:
EIA
Maggie Dewane, Press Officer
1 202-483-6621
mdewane@eia-global.org
