Interest in environmental issues in the wood products industry is growing and companies must be prepared to deal with it acccording to Robert Taylor of UPM-Kymmene Wood Ltd.
Finland-based Mr Taylor was guest speaker at the recent London Softwood Club meeting where he talked about forest certification, knowing the origin of wood and illegal logging.
Interest, he said, is coming from customers, shareholders, investors and stakeholders, and sales and marketing staff need the correct information to communicate these issues with customers.
He outlined various campaigns and articles by NGOs and the media which have targeted the forest and timber industry and said it was important to know that timber comes from well managed forests and to promote wood as a renewable natural resource.
Talking about certification, he said there are currently more than 50 schemes covering 160 million ha, and that UPM is committed to the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Scheme, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. He also said that PEFC is developing an international chain of custody standard which will allow different certification schemes to use the same standard to verify the origin of wood and to support their declarations and labels. This would cover up to 75% of the certified forests in the world today.
And, he said, it was in the industry’s interests to promote mutual recognition adding that there were no significant practical differences between the schemes and that the whole purpose of each was to promote sustainable forest management.
UPM-Kymmene has developed its own statement of origin for all timber import deliveries and Mr Taylor said it can trace the origin of Finnish wood 100% and imported wood 99%. The system won a United Nations prize in Johannesburg last year.
