The CEO of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) recently drew
inspiration from the food industry to send a warning to TTF members.
If you have been in Europe for the past month or so, you
will have almost certainly seen a huge amount of coverage afforded to the
discovery of horsemeat masquerading as processed beef. John White, Chief
Executive of the TTF took a recent opportunity at the Western Timber
Association annual dinner to make the link between the now beleaguered European
food industry and the continent’s timber industry.
On Sunday 3rd March 2013, the most important
piece of legislation seen within the timber industry for many years came into
effect. The EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) is the European Commission’s attempt to
combat illegal logging activities around the globe. By closing off the
lucrative European Union to illegal loggers, it is thought that this action
alone will begin an unstoppable decline to their activities and better
protection of the world’s forests.
Mr White explained: “At its heart, the EUTR is about
traceability and knowing that what we are buying is what it is supposed to be,”
he said. “And to be frank, we have not always been clear about what's gone into
the millions of cubic metres of wood products we import each year. Take plywood
- a term that covers many species of timber. Where do they come from? Have we
always known? Well the EUTR means we have to.”
The consequences of not taking the EUTR seriously, he said,
were clearly laid out in the horsemeat scandal.
“It has meant reputational and financial damage to brands,
damage to the processed food industry and ultimately to the food sector as a
whole. And for ‘food’, under the EUTR you can just as easily read ‘wood’.”
Mr. White had a very clear message to members of the timber
industry who thought that the EUTR would pass them by and that they would ‘get
away with it’: “And we have to say to anyone who does not meet the highest
standards in terms of traceability and supply chain transparency, membership of
the TTF is not for you,” he said. “There is too much at stake for all of us to
take any other view.”
At Duchy Timber we are taking the EUTR very seriously and
have been taking extra care whilst we prepare for our Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
accreditations during the first quarter of 2013.
David Adam, Managing Director and owner of Duchy Timber
said: “The vast majority of the home-grown timber that we process and use in
our manufactured products comes from within the Southwest of the UK. In a lot
of cases we know the location of the standing timber; we know the land owner
and we know the harvesting contractors personally.” Mr. Adam continued: “Also,
the imported timber that we buy in our merchanting operation is almost
exclusively Scandinavian and is either FSC or PEFC accredited as being from
sustainable sources.”
Karl Avery, Duchy Timber’s Commercial Manager is the one
responsible for the majority of the company’s large product purchases for
wholesale. He said: “We carefully balance the necessity of providing a range of
high quality product to our customers, for a competitive price without cutting
corners and buying sheets from unsustainable sources. We work closely with our
suppliers and in most cases the manufacturer directly so that we can be as confident
as we can be that we are compliant with the EUTR.”
To find out more about Duchy Timber go to our website at: www.duchytimber.co.uk
To find out more about the EU Timber Regulation, follow the
link to the European Commission’s page on the subject here: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/forests/timber_regulation.htm
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