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Canadian Standards Association

Canfor has CSA certification for a large proportion of our operations in British Columbia and Alberta, with two separate certificates: One for multi-partner sites in northern British Columbia and northern Alberta, and one for the Fort St. John Code Pilot.

The 2015 CSA surveillance re-certification audit of Canfor’s woodlands in British Columbia and Alberta found our sustainable forest management system meets ISO 14001 and CSA Z809 requirements.

The audit team found a high level of conformance with Forest Management System requirements and applicable regulatory requirements on the field sites visited, and identified good practices such as:

  • Across the company, Canfor is in the process of developing a variety of due diligence procedures to help address the risks that forest operations pose to migratory birds.
  • Houston developed a “Block, Road Permit, Site Plan and SUP Checklist” to help ensure plan/permit consistency with forest stewardship plan requirements.
  • Vavenby maintained good stand level retention, including patch design and individually retained trees.
  • Vanderhoof used photo documentation of operations such as bridge installations and deactivations to demonstrate due diligence in the implementation of operational controls.
  • A logging contractor at Chetwynd is using SiteDoc software as a centralized way to track training, incidents, inspections, mechanical work, pre-works and employee task observations. SiteDoc is a highly customizable app with the capability to store photos and signatures.
  • Grande Prairie combined data from the Foothills Stream Crossing Partnership and Canfor’s road maintenance database to improve the classification of risk and prioritization for implementation of impact mitigation strategies in medium- and high-risk watersheds.
  • Chetwynd staff expended considerable effort in promoting Public Advisory Committee participation with interested parties, including cold calling community members, advertising meetings, handing out flyers, asking participants to bring a buddy, and other initiatives.
  • Mackenzie Public Advisory Committee continues to have very good representation from local First Nations.
  • Houston continues to work with government, First Nations and other parties in attempting to reduce the potential harvest level impacts associated with various draft government orders relating to spatially defined old growth management areas, caribou habitat, etc.

The audit found that Canfor had addressed two of three open non-conformities, and closed them. The third was downgraded to an opportunity for improvement.

Five new minor non-conformities were identified:

  • Some contractors in Chetwynd and Prince George did not complete all required training.
  • Weaknesses in the implementation of operational controls for fuel management, including issues with fuel equipment at Mackenzie and Prince George and a fuel cache at Vanderhoof.
  • Monitoring and measurement procedures failed to identify deficiencies that could have had an environmental impact at Vavenby and Prince George.
  • Monitoring and measurement procedures did not adequately address how the company had addressed issues related to actual or potential non-conformities at Mackenzie and Grande Prairie.
  • Chetwynd uses non-conventional (cable or aerial) harvest systems on 11% of its coniferous land base; below the 16% target. It had not yet developed a clear corrective action plan to address the gap. BC Timber Sales, the other plan signatory, has not yet reported so the numbers may not be accurate.

There were also five systemic opportunities for improvement cited, related to training, operational controls, emergency preparedness, and issues with incident tracking.