Advantage timber

There is a lot happening in the world of legal and sustainable wood production. The UK government timber procurement policy is changing to require sustainable timber rather than legal or sustainable, the US has amended the Lacey Act to make it illegal to import wood and wood products from an illegal source, and the European Commission is looking at a due diligence requirement for anyone trading wood in the European Union.

At the same time, the pressure on forests globally is growing as agricultural commodity prices soar, yet the world has finally realised that destroying forests results in a major contributor to climate change and needs to be stopped. And then there is wood as a low-carbon and sustainable building material. So where does all this leave the UK timber industry?

The change in the UK government procurement policy won’t take effect until next year, but there is already a lot of discussion about what the impacts might be. For many it won’t make much difference as they are already supplying certified products, but others will need to find new ways of proving both origin and sustainability.

However, this doesn’t mean the demand for proof of legality has gone. On the contrary, not only is it a basic requirement for the huge majority of private sector purchasing policies, but there are also a number of things happening which will make it even more necessary.

Lacey Act

The first of these is the recent amendment to the US Lacey Act which means it is a criminal offence in the US to buy or sell wood or wood products which can be shown to have been illegally harvested in the country of origin. The most severe penalty includes a jail sentence as well as a fine and confiscation of goods, but a very important part of the new legislation is that penalties are much less severe for anyone who can prove that they undertook reasonable due diligence – that is, taking reasonable precautions to ensure that the timber was not illegal. Therefore, reasonable evidence of legal origin is likely to become very much in demand in the US.

And it may not be just the US. Europe is also looking at something similar as part of the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. While most attention has been focused on Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) which should eventually result in FLEGT-licensed timber, the Commission has also been looking at “additional options” for controlling illegal wood within the EU. Having rejected a Lacey-style law as too complicated to implement within the widely differing legal systems of the 27 member states, the Commission is now considering developing a due diligence requirement. If well-constructed this could, in practice, end up requiring something very similar to the US – though of course there is always the potential for an interpretation which is too weak to make a difference. So let’s hope this will prove a real tool for improvement.

Climate change

Climate change and the world’s reaction is also beginning to influence forests and forest products. Demand for “clean energy” has already created huge concern about liquid biofuels and the debate is now turning to solid biomass as well, with demands that “sustainable production” be defined and implemented. There is also a real focus on sustainability and carbon neutrality in the construction sector both in the UK and internationally with potentially significant impacts for wood and wood products.

So what does this all mean for the industry in the UK? Well, the trend is clear: wherever you look there is an increasing demand for sustainable products from known and acceptable sources. One way to look at it is that it means even more work, inconvenience and bureaucracy and to some extent that is true, but it could also be a huge opportunity. The requirement to prove that raw materials are sustainable is not going to go away.

On the contrary, whereas 10 years ago timber was often singled out, nowadays everyone is scrabbling to follow. This gives the timber industry a double advantage. First, it has a product which is renewable, carbon neutral and potentially sustainable. Second, there is already a huge wealth of experience in proving this. There are few in the industry who are not aware of the issues and certification is relatively well-understood.

We all know that it is not always easy – supply chains are complex, suppliers change, not all the products people want to buy are made with wood from well-managed forests, unsustainable timber can be temptingly high quality and low price – but there has already been huge progress and the industry is well-placed to take advantage of this and position itself and its products as the most sustainable and climate-friendly option.