The governing board of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) has approved a new Responsible Purchasing Policy (RPP).
The policy will be voluntary from January 2005 and will be especially useful to those wishing to sell timber to organisations with timber procurement policies.
Suppliers will be assessed through a standard questionnaire and the aim is to identify those that run a high risk of supplying timber that cannot be verified as legal and sustainable.
All suppliers will have to be assessed in the first year and any identified as high risk will be advised on how to improve the situation. The policy will be independently audited each year and signatories will be helped to develop their performance in relation to their annual targets.
In a bid to make the RPP easy to adopt, the TTF is examining the creation of a Suppliers’ Information Database which will help streamline the policy and make it more user-friendly.
TTF head of public affairs Mark O’Brien said: “The RPP is a toolkit to help to demonstrate conformity with the TTF Code of Conduct and we hope members will see the practical advantages of signing up. We believe they will if they can see it will help them to sell timber to customers such as the UK government that wants to buy legal and sustainable timber. As such, the RPP is an investment in their future performance.”
