FSC® Certification

Galleher offers a wide variety of wood flooring products that are genuinely FSC® certified (FSC C092805) . We are committed to supporting and promoting sustainable forest management and the ethical harvesting of the world’s most environmentally friendly flooring material: wood.

NOTE: Since FSC® certified products aren’t always in stock, it’s best to allow some lead time when ordering them from us.

Forest certification is a voluntary process intended to ensure consumers that the wood products they buy are backed by responsible forest practices. On-the-ground forestry operations are assessed against a set of environmental and social standards. If they pass, their timber is “certified,” and if the wood follows a “chain of custody” from forest to end user.

The Forest Stewardship Council® is a not-for-profit organization that accredits certifiers whose programs conform to its internationally-recognized standards. FSC® is supported by most major environmental groups, including World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club.

The purpose of forest certification is to promote sustainable forestry. Responsible forestry has social and economic as well as environmental components. Among other things, well-managed forestry operations take into account ecosystem health, wildlife habitat, environmentally sensitive areas, water and soil quality, and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Promoting sustainable forestry is key to saving forests. Building markets for responsible forest products creates incentives for people to preserve forest as forest instead of converting it to other uses. Around the world, forests are being cleared to make way for housing developments, cattle grazing, and agriculture. Deforestation and forest burning in the tropics has been identified as the second largest source – after the energy sector – of emissions of the greenhouse gases that threaten climatic stability. Irresponsible logging compromises the health and integrity of forest ecosystems, soils, and waterways. In parts of the developing world, illegal logging rampant. 

FSC® Certified Companies vs Products

We say that our products are ‘genuinely’ FSC® certified (FSC C092805) because some of our competitors use the FSC® logo in ways that can be misleading. In order to sell FSC® certified products, manufacturers and distributors not only have to buy wood from certified forests, they also need to pass a “chain of custody” (CoC) audit verifying that they have procedures and systems in place to make, trade, promote and label products according to FSC® rules.

Unfortunately, most people don’t understand the difference between FSC® certified companies and FSC® certified products. CoC certification is sort of like a driver’s license. A license gives you the right to drive a car, but it doesn’t mean you have to. In the same way, CoC certification gives companies the right to sell FSC® certified products, but it doesn’t mean they have to. A company may be CoC certified and feature the FSC® logo in their marketing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that what they are selling you is FSC® certified.

In order to be sure that you are buying FSC–certified wood flooring, you need to check that the invoice clearly lists the FSC–certified status of the individual product in its line-item description.