The Timber Trade Federation has had two major successes recently in both the public affairs and corporate and social responsibility spheres.

On December 9 the federation hosted a meeting with environment minister Elliot Morley, which was extremely positive. The recent CPET report on certification was high on the agenda and the minister agreed that DEFRA would examine the possibility of seconding an official to the TTF to work on procurement matters. He welcomed and praised the constructive relationship DEFRA had with the TTF, particularly our involvement in the CPET supervisory board.

The minister also praised the Responsible Purchasing Policy as an example of industry good practice and recognised it as a valuable tool in meeting government procurement requirements.

Another boost to the federation’s CSR work came in the shape of an EU grant of €3.5m to fund a partnership of EU and developing country timber trade organisations to promote the sourcing of verified, legal tropical timber into the partner countries.

The aim of the five-year project is to deliver direct practical support to obtain verified legal timber from 183 mills and forest concessions, through the establishment of common standards of legality, with accompanying systems for monitoring supply chain transparency and accountability.

The project will build capacity and develop practical timber tracking in four supplier countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Gabon and the Cameroon) and help to spread codes of practice and legality information through workshops, newsletters, websites and consultations.

This grant, which operates on the basis of matched funding, offers a substantial budget to fund capacity building and helps our suppliers to help deliver more verified legal timber into European partner countries.

This is another major step forward in helping the private sector to co-operate with the EU in delivering its action plan on illegal logging.