Match Funds for Tropical Sustainability

The sustainable Tropical Timber coalition (sTTc) launched two years to increase EU market share of certified tropical timber. It immediately won the backing of the European Timber Trade Federation (ETTF).

Now the two have announced a new strategy to target match-funding for sustainable procurement strategies at industry federations and private business across Europe.

The STTC was established in 2013 against the background of declining EU sales of tropical timber, which shrank over 50% from 2007 to 2014 to under 1 million m3, according to International Tropical Timber Organisation figures.

One reason for the fall was economic crisis, but clearly tropical material's poor environmental image, often based on market misconception, was also implicated.

Moreover, tropical timber is facing ever more commercial competition, not just from temperate hardwoods, but also engineered and modified softwoods.

The wider concern was that, if EU sales of tropical timber generally and certified tropical in particular continued to decline, it might also lessen incentive for tropical timber producers themselves to certify or, indeed, sustainably manage their forests overall.

The picture was summed up at the recent International Hardwood Conference in Copenhagen by Hans Stout, Programme Director of Dutch-government-backed IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, which set up the STTC, "We can't press producers of tropical timber to certify if we don't back markets for it," he said (see p38).

So the STTC launched, its headline goal to increase certified timber's share of EU tropical sales by 50% by 2020. Besides being good for the forest and environment, the ambition is that the improved image this generates also kick-starts the tropical market.

The new body soon gathered a wide support network of industry federations, private companies, national and local governments, end-users and retailers. And to date it has produced literature, videos and life cycle assessment feasibility studies, and supported tropical promotions at exhibitions. It also backed development of a Dutch website on certified lesser-known tropical timber species (www.houtdatabase.nl), now in translation.

But more needs to be done, notably through setting importers specific goals. Hence our new funding strategy. The inspiration is partly the UK and Netherlands Timber Trade Federations' responsible procurement policies. These have seen members increase their proportion of imports taken by certified timber to 90% overall and 50% for tropical. We want to support similar approaches elsewhere, focusing initially on federations in France, Germany, Spain, Denmark and Italy, helping them set up policy plans to boost certified timber's share of members' tropical imports by 30% in two years.

By 'sustainable' timber we're principally focusing on FSC and PEFC certified. We're not excluding other certification or sustainability declaration, but these tend to create more provability issues.

Federations' will receive 50% match funding from the STTC up to €30,000, with ETTF as liaison. In addition, we will provide 30% match funding, up to €15k (costs in kind included), for individual companies' certified timber strategies.

It's also key to stress that, despite the initial fivecountry federation focus, this programme is open to bodies and companies elsewhere in the EU. So please get in touch. Together we have important work to do.