UPM's director for environmental forestry affairs, Pivi Salpakivi-Salomaa said that at present only 5% of the world's forestlands are certified.

"What we would like to do is to raise the amount of certified fibre globally."

UPM had noticed some differences between the various schemes, but "no one seems to know what this means in practice," she said.

"We would like to know more about each scheme, and promote the benefits of each one to our stakeholders."

Testing will be conducted in three countries, the UK, Finland and Canada, and will be carried out on company owned and managed land.

The tests will involve national schemes and both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) schemes.

WWF International will act as an observer on the project.

Salpakivi-Salomaa said that the testing would also enable the Finnish papermaker to see if its own forest practices needed improving, and where necessary this would be carried out.

"What we want to do is provide more information on certification schemes for our stakeholders and promote certification," she said.

The testing is to be carried out during the summer, and the first results should be known by next May.

UPM's Caledonian Paper mill in Scotland attained dual environmental chain of custody standards in February this year (PrintWeek 4 March).

The mill is certified to both FSC and PEFC standards, and was instrumental in helping BBC Magazines move Radio Times to FSC production last month.

Story by Andy Scott