Federal Government assesses forest certification schemes for public procurement

Background and Objective

To underline the important role of a forest management system which is, based on principle of sustainability, environmentally sound, socially acceptable and economically viable, the Federal Government supports the certification of sustainably managed forests and will continue to use only wood from certified stands in its procurement measures.

The proof of compliance with the requirements  may  be provided by presenting a credible certificate of sustainable forest management  or by an individual specification.

Requirements and contents of certification systems are usually subject to dynamic developments, leading to changes in the standards applied.

Both the certification systems and their development must periodically be assessed and individual specifications must be verified concerning  the compliance with the requirements.

According to the demands of the regulation the Thünen-Institute must exercise the needed inspections in adjustment with the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.

Approach

The federal government supports certification of sustainable forest management and hereby promotes ecological, economic and social sound management of forests. Hence, public procurement has to consider only legal and sustainable produced timber and timber products. Valid evidence are certificates of endorsed forest certification schemes or individual specifications.

 Requirements and contents of certification systems are usually subject to dynamic developments, leading to changes in the standards applied. Both the certification systems and their development must periodically be assessed and individual specifications must be verified concerning  the compliance with the requirements. According to the demands of the regulation the Thünen-Institute must exercise the needed inspections in adjustment with the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.

Preliminary Results

The assessment of the latest standard-revisions of the leading certification schemes Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC) demonstrate qualitative improvement of the schemes (Provision for new scientific findings and altered social demands on forests and forest management) Both meet the procurement requirements completely and are regarded as equivalent.

Within a comparison of the timber procurement policies (TPP) in six EU- Member States, which has been recently published, the TPPs in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and United Kingdom has been assessed concerning commonalities and differences in terms of harmonization.[1]

Since the European Timber regulation came into effect in March 2013 the certification schemes were evaluated if and how they can contribute to the legality verification and the due diligence application as defined by the EUTR requirements.

[1]
http://www.isafor.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Comparison-of-existing-TPPs-final-Rev-1-17-Jan.-2016.pdf