Certification - Introduction

Members of the Timber Trade Federation – accounting for about 80% of the UK timber imports – are committed to sourcing their timber from legal and well-managed forests. The most straightforward way to provide assurances that timber comes from such forests is by sourcing timber and timber products that can be traced back to forests that have been ‘certified’.

Forest Certification is an independent assessment of the management of a particular forest. If the management complies with a set of standards, forest certification allows using an eco-label for the timber that originates from that forest. Forest certification is responding to an international consensus that sustainable forest management is of great significance. Various certification schemes set up different standards defining the environmental, economical and social thresholds. Applying those on the operational forest management level (by a certification body), they assess and approve a sustainable forest use. The standards address e.g. management planning, harvesting, conservation of biodiversity, pest and disease management, and social impacts of the forestry operations.

To guarantee customers that the certified goods they buy are genuinely the products of a well-managed forest, a Chain of Custody Certification is required. The Chain of Custody system enables to trace back the certified timber from the end user to the source forest. It requires that certified products are identified, segregated and accompanied by appropriate documentation at all stages. A certified company must prove that it does have an effective control system to trace back its raw material through processing, transformation and distribution, to the certified source.