Avantha's Sabah Forest Industries presented with SmartWood Verified Legal Origin Verification Statement
Sabah Forest Industries (SFI), Malaysia, a subsidiary of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) and part of the US$3 bn Avantha Group, has been presented with a SmartWood Verified Legal Origin (VLO) Verification Statement by Rainforest Alliance.
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Sabah Forest Industries (SFI), Malaysia, a subsidiary of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) and part of the US$3 bn Avantha Group, has been presented with a SmartWood Verified Legal Origin (VLO) Verification Statement by Rainforest Alliance.
SmartWood is the auditing arm of the internationally recognised US-based Rainforest Alliance. SmartWood’s audits are based on protocols and standards developed by Rainforest Alliance. SFI’s forest plantation, natural forest management areas, sawmills and plywood factory were audited by SmartWood, and verified as being compliant with the SmartWood’s Verified Legal Origin standard. This provides customers with the confidence that SFI’s products are derived from legal sources.
Commenting on the achievement, SFI’s Managing Director, Mr. Yogesh Agarwal said, “At SFI, our commitment lies in giving the best financial returns to our partners and stakeholders, while maintaining the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility. We are keen to demonstrate this by independent third party audits. While we still have some way to go, this is a positive first step towards obtaining full forest certification.”
He added that SFI is now working on achieving Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Controlled Wood certification.
Notes to Editor
About Avantha:
Avantha Group is one of India’s leading business conglomerates. Its successful entities include BILT, Crompton Greaves, The Global Green Company, Avantha Power & Infrastructure, Biltech Building Elements, Solaris Chemtech Industries, Salient Business Solutions, and Avantha Technologies. International subsidiaries include Pauwels, SFI, Intergarden, Ganz , Microsol, Sonomatra, MSE Power Systems and Puszta Konzerv. The Group has business interests in diverse areas including power generation and distribution, power transmission and distribution equipment and services; paper and pulp; food processing; farm forestry; chemicals; infrastructure, IT and ITES. Led by Mr. Gautam Thapar, Avantha demonstrates strong leadership globally and emerges as a focused corporate, leveraging its knowledge, leadership and operations, adding lasting value for its stakeholders and investors.
About BILT
Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT), part of the US$ 3 billion Avantha Group, is India’s largest manufacturer of writing and printing (W&P) paper. BILT’s subsidiaries include Sabah Forest Industries (SFI), Malaysia’s largest pulp and paper company, and BILT TreeTech Limited (BTTL), which runs BILT’s farm forestry programme in several states in India.
BILT has six manufacturing units across India, which give the company geographic coverage over most of the domestic market. BILT has a dominant share of the high-end coated paper segment in India. The company accounts for over 50% of the coated wood-free paper market, an impressive 85% of the bond paper market and nearly 45% of the hi-bright Maplitho market, besides being India’s largest exporter of coated paper. BILT is the first Indian paper company to feature among the global top 100.