On our latest busman’s holiday, in “western Europe’s largest forest” in the south-west of France, we couldn’t help but notice the giant hoardings amidst the pine trees. If my schoolboy French is holding up, they read: “Fragile nature: our foresters manage these woodlands to preserve them”.

The message was clear – the forestry and timber industry can make commercial use of the trees, while the forests retain their environmental and social benefits. And the proof for this was all around.

The area is awash with sawmills, paper and sheet materials plants (if I’m not mistaken the Weyerhaeuser plant at Linxe was the nearest). But it’s also a prime leisure destination, with plentiful cycle paths keeping the tourists out from under the wheels of the massive log trucks.

Our research in this area was admittedly hardly scientific, but judging by the buzzards circling over our pallid bodies, the grass snakes slithering through the undergrowth and the deer and red squirrels

queuing up to throw themselves under the car, the area also seems rich in that environmental buzzword ‘biodiversity’.

Of course, such anecdotal evidence that the timber and forestry sector can have its commercial and ecological cake and eat it is not on its own going to satisfy the punters, specifiers, NGOs and authorities. But, as our Certificates and Standards supplement shows, the accreditation and certification schemes that provide the concrete proof of the sector’s environmental credentials are making progress worldwide.

The comparative study of Forest Stewardship Council and US Sustainable Forestry Initiative certification programmes also demonstrates that we may eventually get the schemes singing from the same hymn sheet.

B&Q still feels there is room for the various schemes to “engage more” with the retailers and each other, but it’s encouraging that such a big buyer takes such a pragmatic approach to the subject and weighs up each certification programme on its merits.

As our pieces on BM TRADA Certification‘s and the British Woodworking Federation‘s quality assurance systems highlight, the industry also has increasingly effective means to provide specifiers and consumers with independent evidence of their products’ quality, durability and predictable performance.

And the update on the Timber Trade Federation‘s Code of Conduct and Codes of Practice highlights their potential as further tools for boosting market confidence in the industry and its products.

I do have one piece of advice for the French timber company operating just down the road from where we were staying though. If you want to make the tourists feel even better about your industry, why not occasionally chill out over a leisurely coffee and croissant and crank up the chainsaws at 9am rather than two hours earlier…