It’s been a while since I was let loose on this column and for many of you it’s probably been a good break but, from my point of view, while I’d happily write for every issue, it shows just how much things have changed. TTJ is now inundated with offers from people to write this piece and that provides variety, which is what we need.
We recently went to see the musical Billy Elliot and the theme of picket lines, strikes and Thatcherism, with raw talent yearning to succeed, all made for a fantastic show, because the story line was real. It made you think about what makes people tick and how reality counts above all else, especially when ‘they’ (the ballet school assessors who gave the lad his break) appreciated ‘us’ (the people working every day).
I’ve recently been involved in a few trade issues, including where the whole CPET debate will go from here, and had the chance to say what I felt: this industry
of ours is swamped in expensive, time-consuming bureaucracy, where companies are spending vast sums trying to prove that everyday timber products are “legal and sustainable”, instead of just concentrating on the tiny volumes of timber that need verification.
While we pay, other building materials play; it must be so much easier to just specify steel or aluminium or plastic, yet we all know that timber’s the only sustainable one out of the lot!
Hopefully we’ll be able to simplify this, by just using ‘CPET Approved’ as a standard covering all the schemes. It will make it easy for buyers to get what they want and understand it too.
Then we can concentrate on the small amounts of difficult timber products, and this is where I know I’m sticking my neck out: the easiest way to do this will be by using the TTF’s Responsible Purchasing Policy (RPP) as a standardised vehicle.
I think ‘they’ will appreciate ‘us’ a lot more if we all do that and right now responsible timber traders deserve a break. Will you join me on our picket line?
