UK Treasury “best” on timber procurement practices

Defra was ranked average among government departments, despite being home to the unit designed to assist Whitehall in managing responsible procurement. The Department for Education scored the lowest.

The results follow a WWF invitation to departments to complete a questionnaire on how they were implementing and monitoring the government’s Timber Procurement Policy (TPP).

The 17 year-old policy is designed to ensure the government drives responsible purchasing so that it will not have a negative impact on forests and forest-dependent communities around the world.

The results indicate that many departments did not implement the policy properly and one, the Northern Ireland Office, was unaware that the government even had a policy.

Key findings include under a third (six out of 21) of central government departments required to implement the Timber Procurement Policy (TPP) achieve full compliance. Only three out of 10 departments which answered the question considered that they themselves were fully implementing the TPP, while less than 10% of the relevant contracts were checked for compliance.

WWF is concerned that many departments could potentially be supporting the continued trade in illegally-sourced or unsustainable timber and wood products by not checking adequately the supply of their purchased products to confirm they have come from legal and sustainable sources.