CPET activities

Following a hectic month in March where over 300 people where trained by CPET things calmed down a bit in April and there has been time to catch up.

The month started off with Chatham house and the Danish Ministry of the Environment’s workshop on public procurement policies in Copenhagen. CPET’s coordinator Sofie Tind Nielsen gave a presentation on assessment of category B evidence. CPET is unique in the sense that no other countries have a supporting body like it and the opportunity to share our experiences with other countries was welcomed by stakeholders from the trade, EU and NGOs.

Following on from the workshop we have been working closely with the other ‘leading’ countries on a common framework to enable comparison of our policies and to highlight similarities and differences. In the name of sharing experiences, CPET gave a presentation to a visiting Bosnian delegation on a study tour with the University of Wolverhampton and supported by the United Nations. The delegation consisted of 15 Bosnians, primarily owners/managers of small-medium sized wood processing companies, along with the manager of a forest and wood industries cluster support forum, two UNDP staff, and two politicians. CPET’s coordinator also met with a representative from Ireland and shared our experiences with the implementation of the public timber procurement policy. CPET also visited a timber merchant with Defra and discussed ways to implement the policy, see the article on alternative species and sources.

We have now received all updated documents from the five certification schemes and are assessing the schemes as Category A evidence. The draft assessment will be sent to the schemes for comments by the end of May, and the technical panel will meet here in Oxford at the beginning of July to discuss the finding. More details on the Category A assessment methodology here.

The release of the New Guidance Note and the report from the Construction Sector study is pending and will be published on the CPET website as soon as possible. Next Month CPET will attend Chatham House’s illegal logging update on 9-10 June. We will be giving an update on the timber procurement policy together with Defra. The meeting is open to all, you only need to register. The draft agenda is now up, at the illegal-logging website here.