Timbmet and Travis Perkins are supporting a new Greenpeace guide to specifying wood which will be distributed to 30,000 architectural practices, construction companies and local authorities around the country.
The How to Specify Good Wood CD-Rom is a step-by-step guide designed to help ensure wood used on construction projects comes from legal and sustainable sources.
The RIBA-approved guide, based on an architects’ course the environmental group ran last year with Oxford-based Timbmet, includes video contributions from former environment minister Michael Meacher, Timbmet and Travis Perkins.
Dr Ian Goldsmith, director of strategic planning at Travis Perkins, said: “It is vitally important every part of the supply chain ensures that all timber they purchase comes from legal and sustainable sources.”
Timbmet group environmental manager Dr Mike Packer added: “There is markedly increasing demand for timber from legal and sustainable sources in both the public and private sector. This CD-Rom can play a vital role in showing specifiers why they should be specifying good wood, and how they can ensure it gets supplied to their building project.”
The guide covers environmental and social reasons for specifying good wood and the risks of not doing so; understanding sustainability and certification; and practical guidance on how sustainable wood can be specified and purchased.
Greenpeace forests campaigner Nathan Argent said: “Contratcors, architects and specifiers have a key role to play in ensuring that the timber used on building projects comes from legal and sustainable sources.”
