Australia’s harvest, haulage, civil and silviculture businesses have a new front door to national certification, with ForestFit opening its Forest Services Portal in the same week the scheme signed a specialist insurance partnership, ArtesMobius, as its inaugural Foundation Sponsor. That is according to Dionne Olsen, the ForestFit chief executive, who said the nationally accredited scheme is built to evolve with the businesses it certifies.
“ForestFit is built on continuous improvement,” Olsen said, with her team charged with strengthening the Forest Services Standards and Certification Scheme so certified businesses can sharpen their own systems, manage critical risks and demonstrate measurable progress over time. Independent certification, she said, gives growers, workers and the broader supply chain confidence in the capability, governance and performance of certified businesses.
Rising expectations around safety, environmental performance and supply chain assurance underpin the new website and portal, which give businesses clearer access to the certification pathway, practical resources and the information needed to strengthen their management systems.
Sustained investment in equipment, workforce capability, management systems, risk controls and appropriate insurance builds the resilience its new sponsor wants to reward, ForestFit said of the partnership. ArtesMobius joins underwriting agency Artes Specialty with wholesale provider Mobius Insurance, two specialists writing cover for niche and traditionally underserved sectors.
“Insurance is not simply a response when something goes wrong; it is an investment,” Chris Thomas, the Artes Specialty chief executive, said, arguing that backing the industry means recognising what businesses spend on modern machinery, operator training, fire suppression technology and safer ways of working. Those investments prevent losses, he said, and support the industry’s long-term sustainability.
“Supporting ForestFit is a practical way for us to recognise that progress,” Tom Richards, a Mobius Insurance director, said, having watched forest service businesses put money into safer equipment, better technology and stronger operating practices. The sponsorship comes as loss adjusters warn diesel-driven claims inflation is widening underinsurance risk across regional timber operations.
ForestFit’s newly established Board of Directors holds its inaugural meeting later this month to set the strategic plan for the scheme’s next phase, the first for a board Olsen expects to hold the standard to its own test of continuous improvement. The credibility of the accredited scheme, she said, is what carries that confidence from certified businesses through to growers, workers and the entire forestry supply chain.
