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The term “green forest” might seem redundant. But as demand for sustainable buildings increases, more landowners want green certifications for the timber used in them.

The Oregon state forester is lobbying for more sustainable forestry certifications that would earn points under the most prolific green building standard, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

But green building experts, including Jason McLennan, executive director of the , say not all sustainable forest certifications should be equivalent.

The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification program awards points for using wood certified by the international nonprofit . But Oregon State Forester Marvin Brown would prefer the council award points for another certification by the , a nonprofit established by major timber corporations like Weyerhauser, International Paper and Smurfit-Stone Container. Brown says the industry standard is just as rigorous as the Forest Stewardship Council’s certification.

McLennan, however, disagrees.

“I’ve seen (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) forests and it’s akin to smoking back in the 1960s being advertised as healthy,” he said. “It’s typical forestry practices. The spin is that there are not many (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified forests in Oregon, so local wood isn’t being used. But that’s because the companies there don’t want to do it. The question should be: Why is forestry in Oregon behind the curve?”

Oregon’s embrace of the timber industry’s standard has left the state at a disadvantage. While states like Washington have pursued Forest Stewardship Council certification for whole blocks of public land, Oregon has only 586,570 acres certified, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. About 2.5 million acres of Oregon forests are Sustainable Forestry Initiative-certified, however.

If the industry-created standard were included in LEED, Brown said Oregon’s struggling timber industry could get a much needed slice of the green building pie. Despite an increase in green building, the construction industry is still mired in the recession, and each year more Oregon timber mills are closing.

“The (Forest Stewardship Council) has a fine standard,” Brown said. “The challenge is there’s a small portion of the world’s forests that are certified at all. In Oregon, most of the wood produced will be produced under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.”

Oregon a few years ago considered whether to pursue Forest Stewardship Council certification for some of its public lands near Klamath Falls, Brown said. The people conducting the audit suggested that because it was public land, it should be held to a higher standard of sustainable management. What that meant, however, was unclear to Brown. The state decided against FSC certification because of uncertainty concerning the additional measures needed to earn it.

But the real reason why Oregon doesn’t have more FSC-certified forests, according to R. Wade Mosby, senior vice president with wood products firm The Collins Cos., is because meeting the standard is so difficult. Mosby’s company has had some of its forest land outside of Oregon certified FSC.

“FSC is the most rigorous certification out there,” Mosby said. “It’s going to be a slow process to increase the number of FSC forests in Oregon.”

Nevertheless, the Forest Stewardship Council standard is the best in existence, said Ralph DiNola, a principal with Portland’s Green Building Services. Putting the Sustainable Forestry Initiative or any other certification on equal footing for LEED points, DiNola said, would devalue the standard.

“If other standards are made equivalent in terms of LEED, FSC will lose ground in terms of being the best standard out there,” DiNola said. “SFI, in my eyes, doesn’t carry the rigor in terms of regulations for clear-cutting, social equity issues for forest adjacent communities and chain-of-custody issues.”

If the main argument for including SFI in LEED is to be sure Oregon wood products are being used, DiNola said that isn’t a problem. Under LEED, use of Forest Stewardship Council wood is worth one point, while use of wood obtained from local sources is worth two. LEED does not require wood to be certified, DiNola added.

But for people like Steve Wilson, a member of the Oregon Forestry Board and a staffer at Woodworkers District 1, inclusion of Oregon’s most popular forest standard would at least encourage the purchase of Oregon wood. Wilson says it’s important to encourage the use of local timber, which he believes is served by the industry certification.

“As I understand it, SFI is every bit as comprehensive as FSC,” Wilson said. “The only difference is it doesn’t discriminate against Oregon wood products. We’re worried about losing our work. If SFI leans towards the use of local wood products, that’s more work for my members.”

Brown and U.S. Reps. David Wu and Kurt Schrader have asked the U.S. Green Building Council to include Sustainable Forestry Initiative certification in the LEED program. The USGBC said it expects to make a decision this fall.