High Point, NC (March 6, 2008) – The American Home Furnishings Alliance announces it will recognize the Appalachian Hardwood Verified Sustainable program for meeting the certified wood requirement in its Sustainable by Design program.

Sustainable by Design is a certification program designed to help AHFA member companies create a corporate culture of conservation and environmental stewardship by integrating sustainable business practices into their manufacturing operations and sourcing strategies.

Companies participating in the program are asked to analyze the environmental impact of their operations, raw materials and finished products. Then they must take specific steps to minimize their “environmental footprint” and develop goals for continual improvement. One component in minimizing the environmental footprint is using certified lumber in furniture production. Sustainable by Design requires companies to use a minimum of 3 percent certified lumber.

“There is an increasing demand among U.S. manufacturers for sustainable resources,” notes AHFA Vice President Bill Perdue. “However, according to 2005 data, only about 7.2 percent of the world’s forest areas are certified, and only about 19 percent of the 748 million acres of forest land in the United States is certified. This leaves companies that are striving to meet a certified lumber requirement in a bind.”

Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Inc. launched its Appalachian Hardwood Verified Sustainable program in July 2007 in an effort to increase the supply of sustainable lumber available to the woodworking industries. AHMI is a regional trade association headquartered in High Point, N.C. It represents more than 200 lumber manufacturers, distributors, foresters and suppliers to the industry. The Verified Sustainable program allows these members to provide their customers with documents verifying that the timber was sourced from the Appalachian Region.

AHMI defines the Appalachian Region as 344 counties in 12 states. These counties must meet elevation, soil composition and climate requirements. A recent analysis by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) confirmed that the hardwood timber base in this region has grown to more than 65.4 million acres, up 300,000 acres since 1990. The region now includes more than 115 billion cubic feet of trees.

The USFS analysis found that the growth to removal ratio in the Appalachian Region is more than 2.29 to 1. The USFS is the only organization in the world that computes growth to removal rates by performing actual on-the-ground inventories of trees in every state.

“We believe this goes beyond basic sustainability and verifies an expanding resource and timber base for the future,” says Tom Inman, president of AHMI.

“The AHMI program is focused on ensuring sustainable forestry practices and, in fact, is the only program in the world that can verify its sustainability claims with real numbers,” adds Perdue.

AHFA also recognizes Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification programs. FSC has about 236 million acres of certified forestland worldwide, including an estimated 83 million in North America. SFI has about 140 million acres in North America.

To gain FSC certification, companies must verify that at least 10 percent of their lumber meets the organization’s stringent certification requirements. In the AHMI’s Verified Sustainable program, however, manufacturers are assured that 100 percent of the lumber they purchase came from the sustainable Appalachian Region.

For more information about AHMI, contact info@appalachianwood.org or visit www.appalachianwood.org. For more information on AHFA’s Sustainable by Design program, contact bperdue@ahfa.us.

The American Home Furnishings Alliance – located in High Point, N.C., and Washington, D.C. – is the largest association of home furnishings companies in the world and represents more than 240 leading furniture manufacturers and distributors, plus about 200 suppliers to the furniture industry worldwide.