FSC loses Green Star monopoly
When the clock signaled the beginning of 2010, the Australian Green Building Council’s discriminatory specification of FSC as the only Green Star-earning timber certification scheme ended. 
The back down didn’t come without a fight – including intervention by federal forestry minister Tony Burke and both the Queensland and Victoria state governments threatening to sideline the scheme on public buildings.
But now there is a level playing field and the Green Building Council of Australia has opened its timber credits to other third party certification schemes – including the PEFC-backed Australian Forestry Standard (AFS).
“This means that projects using timber from any scheme, including AFS, will be eligible for points through the credit, so long as the scheme has applied for and met the essential criteria,” says GBCA chief executive Romilly Madew.
BREAKING NEWS
Certification wars: PEFC fighting FSC monopoly
28 July 2010
The big guns may have been quiet for a while, but the battle between major certification brands PEFC and FSC is back on – just in time for the protagonists to vent their respective spleens at a major conference in Australia. Or will they?