VidaSpace’s Sustainability Certifications Explained

At VidaSpace, we are passionate about sustainability. It’s not just about providing you with beautiful timber, but finding you the right timber.

We are always looking to be the most sustainable we can be, to protect our forests, the people of the land and the animals that live within.

As consumers are growing increasingly concerned with choosing products that are responsibly sourced and made, FSC® and Cradle to Cradle certificates give you assurance of the origin of our products.

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FSC® Certification

FSC®, or the Forest Stewardship Council is an international, non-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. It is internationally recognised as the most rigorous environmental and social standard for responsible forest management.

FSC® certified forests protect waterways and wildlife habitat, conserve regions of high biodiversity, and minimize the impact of harvesting.  It also prohibits the conversion of natural forests for plantations, mining, oil exploration or agriculture. Independent auditors monitor forestry practices annually on-the-ground.

FSC® requires that Indigenous Peoples rights are respected and requires forest managers to protect threatened high conservation value forests.

It is essentially a ‘track and trace’ to tell you where your timber has been on its journey, and that is has been responsibly managed.

We can tell you the forest your timber has come from in Europe, right down to the approximate area and our UK partners Havwoods visit every mill we work with throughout Europe, to ensure they are compliant.

In order to ensure your product has correct certification at the time of install, each link in the chain of custody needs to hold an FSC certificate. If one link in this chain from manufacture to supplier is broken, it cannot be classified as an FSC® product.

As VidaSpace are the last part in this chain of custody, we hold a current certificate, ensuring your product can contribute towards Green Star / Home Star accreditation.

FSC® Website

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Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle is a globally recognised measure of safer, more sustainable products made for the circular economy – an economic system in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life.

To receive certification, products are assessed for environmental and social performance across five categories. Each product is given an achievement level of Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum for each category. The lowest achievement represents its overall certification.

Our Venture and Hand Grade reach Silver in all categories except Social Fairness in which it reaches Gold.

Outline of categories are:

• Material Health – The material health category helps to ensure products are made using chemicals that are as safe as possible for humans and the environment by leading designers and product developers through a process of inventorying, assessing and optimizing material chemistries.
• Material Reutilization – The material reutilization category aims to eliminate the concept of waste by helping to ensure products remain in perpetual cycles of use and reuse from one product use cycle to the next.
• Renewable Energy & Carbon Management – The renewable energy & carbon management category helps to ensure products are manufactured using renewable energy so that the impact of climate changing greenhouse gases due to the manufacturing of the product is reduced or eliminated.
• Water Stewardship – The water stewardship category helps ensure water is recognized as a valuable resource, watersheds are protected, and clean water is available to people and all other organisms.
• Social Fairness – The aim of this category is to design business operations that honour all people and natural systems affected by the manufacture of a product.

Cradle to Cradle Website

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For specifiers and building owners, FSC® and Cradle to Cradle certified products count towards your building’s Greenstar or Homestar ratings. The NZ Green Building Council (NZGBC) want to see responsible product choices in commercial and residential buildings. Every time you specify products that are environmentally preferable, you increase your buildings final “green” score.

Specifying FSC® and Cradle to Cradle products helps to create a more sustainable future.

Look for the certification on each products technical data sheet.

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