Most consumers have a keen awareness of the damage illegal logging and forest land clearance can do: media images of ravaged woodlands are not easily forgotten. Publicity driven by NGOs has catapulted these issues into the collective consciousness.

But the encouraging thing is, the timber trade is responding to the issues and there are increasing moves to secure timber’s place as the environmental choice. wood. for good is an example, as is the recent collaboration between Timbmet Ltd and Greenpeace to launch a training course aimed at helping architects specify certified hardwoods.

With such an increasing emphasis on green issues, the need to bring timber and wood products to the market which have been sourced from sustainably managed forests has never been greater.

Certification is gaining momentum worldwide and there are encouraging signs even in regions where illegal logging has historically been worst.

Currently, there are 31 million ha of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forest worldwide, of which more than one million is in the UK. FSC does not have figures in terms of cubic metres but, based on data from WWF, the New Economics Foundation says that UK retail sales of FSC-certified wood products rose from £351m in 1999 (1.8% of all timber sales by the NEF’s definition) to £629m in 2000 (3.4% of all timber sales).

Meanwhile, the amount of forest certified under the Pan European Forest Certification (PEFC) banner has rapidly increased, with 46.3 million ha being the latest figure. Almost half is taken up by the Finnish Forest Certification Scheme (21.9 million ha), with the second biggest area being Norway (9.3 million ha).

Similar advances are being made in North America. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative was very active in the US during 2002, with the total certified area reaching 28.6 million ha and 4.5 million ha in Canada. Canadian Standards Association (CSA) certified areas grew by 63% to reach 14.4 million ha by the end of 2002.

And FSC certified areas in North America are also growing, though the figures are much lower – 4.5 million ha by the end of last year.

The situation in the Far East is somewhat different, with a lower proportion of timber and wood products currently carrying any form of certification. However, under the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC), Malaysia has adopted a new national standard for forest management, developed in line with FSC criteria.

Indonesian certification

Certification work is also in progress in Indonesia. The Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (LEI), an accreditation and standards body founded in 1998, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the FSC.

The recently set up Forestry Industry Revitalisation Agency in Indonesia is combating the illegal trade, while the country’s forest minister Muhammad Prakosa is a vociferous voice promoting reform.

And in Brazil, the moratorium on mahogany exploitation, in place since 2001, has just been extended for another 150 days, during which a special commission will set environmentally sustainable standards for the restart of harvesting.

With so many certification schemes in operation the issue of ‘mutual recognition’ between them has become a hot potato. FSC UK is working on definitions and has collaborations with other systems, for instance the MTCC and LEI, but says it can only mutually recognise schemes that are “substantially equivalent”.

Anna Jenkins, director of FSC UK, said: “FSC has worked with other systems and we will continue to collaborate with them but that does not mean we will mutually recognise them. FSC is here to further good forest management.”

She acknowledges that if the FSC were to mutually recognise a certification system with different standards than itself, it would stand to lose support from the environmental groups that have helped make it such a success. However, she can foresee a scenario where a scheme under the PEFC umbrella might want to apply for its forest management standards to be FSC certified.

Ms Jenkins expects a lot of future certified timber volume to be driven by government procurement policy. But she maintained that, while the UK government is developing a “Centre of Expertise” (CoE) to cover the subject, it still has problems defining “legal and sustainable”.

“Until the CoE is established and they give out very clear guidance, the industry is working in a bit of a vacuum. They have just got to make sure the timber comes from a legal and well managed source.”

She claimed, in the meantime, that FSC-certified timber suppliers are getting more and more orders.

&#8220We are very involved with FSC and would like to see more certified timber available. Compatibility between FSC and PEFC and marketed under one label would certainly assist in this, but it is important to have only one label to avoid confusing the public”

Paul Steenberg, executive purchasing manager, FW Mason & Sons Ltd

PEFC urges co-ordination

Meanwhile, the rapidly-expanding PEFC wants more co-ordination between the various certification schemes, with work towards mutual recognition.

A recent development was the accreditation of BM TRADA to certify to the UK PEFC national governing body’s chain of custody, as endorsed by the PEFC Council in Europe (TTJ March 8/15) – which means the PEFC label will now appear on timber in the UK. The move opens the door for larger volumes of certified timber coming onto the UK market place.

PEFC Council secretary-general Ben Gunneberg said: “Although much progress has been recently made concerning the area of certified forests, we now need to concentrate on bringing products from these forests to the consumers.”

He is urging all enterprises between the forest and the final consumer to obtain PEFC chain of custody certification to allow the public to “make positive choices from certified sustainably managed forests”.

AssiDomän Timber was the first company in the Nordic region to supply FSC-certified timber to the UK in 1997. Most of its forests in Sweden are certified, with about 20% of its UK timber exports being sold as FSC-certified.

Mikael Eliasson, responsible for strategic planning at AssiDomän, said: “An important factor for increasing use of wood is consumers being able to rely on the source of supply. One of the obstacles to increasing wood consumption is the perception that use of wood is equivalent to deforestation.

“We have to let people know it’s good to use wood because it is a natural resource that is renewable.”

Suppliers’ responsibility

Mr Eliasson, who sits on the wood. for good board of directors, said timber suppliers have a big responsibility in helping grow the market for certified products. He describes the “important” UK market as a focus for work with certification, due to the substantial volumes and variety of imported timber.

Timber and mouldings manufacturer FW Mason & Sons Ltd is enthusiastic about certified timber. Executive purchasing manager Paul Steenberg said: “We are very involved with FSC and would like to see more certified timber available. Compatibility between FSC and PEFC and marketed under one label would certainly assist in this, but it is important to have only one label to avoid confusing the public.”

Many landmark public projects are now using certified timber. Lambeth was the first local authority to specify and use FSC-certified timber, on its Fairfax House regeneration project, while Horsham District Council’s Pavilions in the Park leisure project is the largest local authority project in the world to be built with timber from independently certified sustainable sources, according to the WWF. FSC-certified Brazilian plywood has also been specified for framework in a £130m tunnel at Heathrow Airport.

The most commonly quoted reason for not specifying and using FSC timber has been that there is not enough available. However, the Smartwood Program maintains the problem is demand, not supply, and without “market pull” the benefits of certification will not materialise.

It’s here that government procurement is expected to play a lead role, despite its failure so far to make good on its promises, as outlined in last year’s Buying Time for Forests report.

Dr Penny Bienz, head of environmental affairs at The Timber Trade Federation, predicts government procurement to be a “huge” factor, involving as much as 20% of the timber industry.

Need for co-ordination

She said all the efforts aimed at sourcing more sustainable timber needed to be co-ordinated, including the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs recognising the work undertaken by the Department for International Development, and that a generic chain of custody would be desirable. She said UK traders do not feel they have enough influence over overseas suppliers in this area.

Dr Bienz believes more and more traders will have systems in place, perhaps not chain of custody certification in the first instance, to ensure minimum standards that timber is from legal sources.

“We are working closely with NGOs in developing more transparency and have NGOs working closely with some of our members. A lot of architects have been asking us for details about how they can source sustainably managed timber.”