Moving to sustainable: April 2009 date set

In a move to increase purchases of sustainably produced timber, the UK Government will accept only sustainable or FLEGT licensed timber after April 2009. 

In the short term, accepting FLEGT licensed timber is an important incentive for timber producing countries to become partners in the EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade forest product licensing initiative. However, as of April 2015, only sustainable timber will be accepted.

These commitments have been made as part of the UK Government Sustainable Procurement Action Plan. The recently published document identifies a number of actions, including those related to timber, as part of a plan to deliver sustainable development goals over the coming years.

Currently, legal timber is the minimum requirement for Central Government purchases, while suppliers are encouraged to offer sustainable timber.  When the minimum requirement for legal timber was first developed, independently verified sustainable timber was not readily available. However, recent studies estimate that over 65% of timber available in the UK originates from certified sources.

Timber from legal sources will continue to be accepted for the next two years, after which the minimum requirement will change. During this time, policy guidance will be developed detailing how this change should be implemented in practice.

Notes for editors

1. The Sustainable Procurement Action Plan was published in March 2007, and includes a number of commitments across Government that, according to the report, are designed to ensure that supply chains and public services will be increasingly low carbon, low waste and water efficient, respect biodiversity and deliver wider sustainable development goals.

2. The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan is an initiative by the European Union to encourage better forest management in developing countries. One measure will be the licensing of legally harvested timber for export to the EU. EU member states will be able to ban imports of unlicensed timber from those countries that volunteer to take part. FLEGT partner countries will also commit to improving their forest management.

3. The Timber Trade Federation published a study in February 2007 that stated ‘the share of certified material available in the UK is predicted to rise to 70.3% in 2006 from 66.7% in 2005’.

4. The timber policy was first announced in July 2000 as ‘a binding commitment on all central government departments and agencies actively to seek to buy timber and timber products from sustainable and legal sources’.