LCA-centred promotion

Dutch timber companies are developing a new promotional strategy for use of sustainably sourced tropical hardwood in civil works after the material scored highly in life cycle analysis projects, supported by the STTC.

The LCA study on marine pile planking was coordinated by Netherlands Timber Trade Association’s (NTTA) Centrum Hout operation, with additional backing from FSC Netherlands. The LCA itself was performed by Ernst &Young Climate Change and Sustainability Services (EY CaS), and independently verified by the LCA department at Stichting Houtresearch (SHR)

This compared performance of sustainably sourced timber marine pile planking versus plastic alternatives. The sustainably sourced tropical wood came out the best in carbon performance and overall environmental impact .

Similar results came out of a Dutch government-commissioned LCA project, evaluating the use of sustainably sourced tropical timber, concrete, steel and reinforced composites in cycle bridges.

Subsequently a group of 12 NTTA member companies plan to use these outcomes in a programme of sustainable tropical timber promotion. The new campaign will target civil engineers, and address sustainable tropical timber’s environmental benefits in relation to climate change mitigation, renewability and low environmental impacts. It will also highlight its technical, design and maintenance performance.

Click here for more information on the LCA´s mentioned and to learn more about the environmental benefits of growing and using wood.

Seismic shifts in hardwood consumption

Consumption and trade patterns in the global hardwood market are undergoing significant shifts, according to keynote speakers at the 2017 International Hardwood Conference. The event, held in Venice in November, drew an international audience of 150, with presentations delivered by a panel of experts from around the world addressing everything from regional trade developments to branding legal and sustainable tropical timber.

Analyst Rupert Oliver of Forest Industries Intelligence said that global hardwood export  and import statistics were in balance in 2017 at US$35 billion, underlining ongoing lack of market value growth in the sector. However, underlying this was a significant shift in consumption, with the key trend being China’s soaring consumption.  In 2016 its hardwood log imports (temperate and tropical) rose to 15.4 million tonnes, 1.1 million more than in 2015. At the same time its hardwood  lumber imports were up 12.5% at 9 million tonnes.

Researcher Davide Pettenella of Padua University reported on an interesting study, asking whether market legality controls were creating a dual market for primary tropical timber products. This compared trade trends in EU states, the USA and Australia, representing developed countries with strict timber market legality regulation, and China, Vietnam and India, representing emerging consumers with lighter controls.  This highlighted import swings towards the latter. In 2001 of all tropical timber imported by these countries, the developed economies accounted for 63% and 72% by volume and value, the emerging countries 37% and 28%.  Today the respective division is 44% and 47%  and 56% and 53%.

However, while legality controls may be implicated in this trend, Mr Pettenella cautioned against assuming direct cause and effect. He said increasing intra-regional trading growth was as, if not more significant. “It’s a phenomenon which should concern policy makers,” said Mr Pettenella. “In 1990, there were just 20 intra-regional trade agreements. Today there are 283.”

This development, said analyst Pierre Desclos, would be reinforced by population growth. Citing Africa as an example, he said the continent, which has 15% of the world’s forests, would account for a third of global population by the end of the century. Consequently it would consume a growing proportion of its own timber within the African region, leaving less for export.  This would necessitate the global trade focusing increasingly on supply, yield and logistics.

Delegates also heard from the International Tropical Timber Technical Association (ATIBT) about its new branding initiative for legal and sustainable tropical timber, Fair & Precious.  This, explained the organisation’s Managing Director Benoît Jobbé-Duval,  was designed to enable the sustainable tropical timber trade to take back control of messaging and agenda setting in its sector and the wider marketplace.

Marketing Programme Coordinator Christine Le Paire explained that companies along the supply chain could use Fair & Precious branding in their own publicity, provided they supplied and traded in verified sustainably and legally sourced tropical timber. “It is effectively an umbrella brand covering all credible sustainable certification and verification schemes, such as FSC, PEFC and PAFC in Africa,” she said.  “Overall the Fair & Precious message is that a viable sustainable tropical timber sector has environmental, social and economic benefits.”

Counting the cost of uncertified

A new environmental impact calculator has been developed by FSC Netherlands and global business consultancy EY (Ernst & Young) to help users evaluate the impacts of using FSC-certified versus non-certified timber.

The online FSC Impact Calculator (http://impacttool.fsc.nl) requires users to key in a timber species name and the quantity used. It then calculates the value in €/m3 of net CO2 emissions and loss of biodiversity avoided if FSC-certified timber is used rather than non-certified, based on the eco-costs model developed at the Delft University of Technology.

Currently focused on 27 tropical species, the approach assumes that harvesting FSC-certified timber causes negligible biodiversity loss and also that the net emission of carbon is zero as the FSC certified forests’ ability to regenerate naturally is not compromised.  At the same time it assumes the worst case scenario that uncertified timber from unknown origin is replaced by agricultural crops, resulting in the loss of all previous biodiversity and release of all carbon stored in the original forest.  The end values expressed are the additional costs that would be incurred by society to maintain environmental impacts at a sustainable level if uncertified timber is used.

FSC Netherlands has used the calculator on real life hardwood applications. For instance, in a 547-property renovation project, the Ymere housing corporation used 365m3 of FSC-certified mahogany. This, according to the FSC tool, avoided environmental costs compared with using uncertified timber totalling €570,000.

The calculator also assessed that if a typical small cycle bridge being renovated in the Netherlands, averaging 2.5m3 of timber, used FSC azobe, the maximum environmental costs avoided would amount to €11,000 for each bridge.

“By showing the benefits of choosing FSC certified tropical wood, FSC can increase the market share of certified tropical wood while helping to reduce the negative impacts of non-certified wood,” said EY. “Using the tool for specific construction projects in the Netherlands has revealed that using FSC certified tropical hardwoods avoids natural capital depletion with a value of approximately 20% of the direct project costs.”

The tool additionally highlights the social value of using certified sustainable timber in terms of ensuring workers’ rights, social and health services and rights of indigenous peoples. It also stresses forests are home to 300 million people worldwide, while 1.6 billion depend on them forests for their livelihood.

 

 

 

EU FLEGT initiative and sustainability

The EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT VPA) and FLEGT Licensing initiatives are best known for their focus on timber legality assurance and verification. Now, however, the European FLEGT Facility has highlighted the sustainability aspects of the wider EU FLEGT programme.

In the Facility’s article, which features in the FLEGT Independent Market Monitor’s just launched newsletter (www.flegtimm.eu/index.php/newsletter), it stresses that FLEGT licences are not a claim to sustainability. But the piece, headlined ‘Beyond Legality’ says that  licensing of  timber and wood products exports to the EU, which Indonesia was the first FLEGT VPA signatory to start doing a year ago, is underpinned by policy reforms and sectoral improvements which help ensure forests support economic growth and poverty reduction and contribute towards sustainability.

“The process [behind licensing] has positive impacts on democracy, justice, jobs, welfare, security, climate change and biodiversity,” states the article.

Under the EU FLEGT initiative, countries sign a VPA, undertaking to establish a comprehensive legality assurance framework from forest to export despatch. Once implemented to the satisfaction of EU and signatory country government, the latter’s authorities can then issue exports to the EU with FLEGT licences. This grants them exemption from further due diligence under the EU Timber Regulation. To date all FLEGT VPA engaged supplier countries are tropical.

The FLEGT Facility says FLEGT licences “attest to compliance with laws related not only to forest management, biodiversity conservation and harvesting, but also to processing, transport and trade, covering aspects such as workers’ rights, fee payment and impacts of forestry operations on local communities or indigenous peoples”.

Licensing, it maintains, also “supports all three pillars of sustainability”; that forests are managed in line with legal requirements, including those on forest management and biodiversity conservation; where tenure rights and use-rights may be affected by harvesting, the initiative verifies respect for those rights; and in guaranteeing stakeholder participation in defining legal requirements for sustainable forest management it ensures these are comprehensive.

Multi-stakeholder processes established under a FLEGT VPA, says the FLEGT Facility, also address legal and policy reform needed to overcome governance challenges that are a barrier to countrywide sustainability. “In so doing, they create the foundations from for addressing drivers of deforestation and promoting sustainable forest management,” the article states, adding that the process also engages civil society organisations in monitoring their countries’ FLEGT programme.

Besides the latter, FLEGT licensing also entails official auditing of the supply chain, and monitoring by EU and supplier country authorities, bringing “unprecedented scrutiny [to bear] on the forest industry”.

“The EU and FLEGT licensing partner country commit in their VPA to monitor social, economic and environmental impacts of the agreement and to mitigate adverse effects on groups [such as] indigenous people and local communities,” states the FLEGT Facility.

In an interview with the European Timber Trade Federation Newsletter (http://ettf.info/node/261), European Commission Director General for the Environment Daniel Calleja Crespo has also stressed the importance of communicating that FLEGT licensing is about more than verifying timber legality and granting a green lane through the EU Timber Regulation. Read the full article here.

IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, has also produced a study on the EU FLEGT initiative as a basis for certified sustainable forest management: https://www.europeansttc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Mainstreaming_Sustainability_in_Tropical_Timber.pdf

 

Highlight EU FLEGT VPAs wider impacts, urges EC Director

European Commission Director General for the Environment Daniel Calleja Crespo has stressed the importance of communicating that FLEGT licensing is about more than verifying timber legality and granting a green lane through the EU Timber Regulation.

In an interview with the European Timber Trade Federation Newsletter (http://ettf.info/node/261), Mr Calleja Crespo said that the first year of FLEGT licensing its exports to the EU by Indonesia, the first country to start licensing, had been a success. In total it had issued around 36,000 licences on timber and wood product valued at €1.1 billion.

However, he added, that “for too long communication about FLEGT licensing has been framed around how it facilitates trade through compliance with legality requirements, such as the EUTR”.

FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements with supplier countries, he said, have also been instrumental in supporting establishment of national processes leading to timber and forestry sector policy reforms, participatory decision-making, better law enforcement and increased transparency.

“This contributes not just to better forest protection, but also protection of the rights of individuals, local communities and indigenous peoples,” said Mr Calleja Crespo.

Looking forward, the Director General said the EU FLEGT VPA and licensing programme may need to both support existing participant countries through the process and encourage more to join, although he highlighted that the former already account for 80% of the EU’s tropical imports.

He also said the EU may consider redirecting investment in  countries where VPA negotiations are not advancing to ‘where it’s needed most’.

The ETTF newsletter, published to mark the anniversary of Indonesia’s start of FLEGT licensing, also included a report on the country’s willingness to share its expertise and experience through its VPA and licensing launch processes. This, it said, was going on with a number of other VPA countries at private and public sector and CSO levels.

As part of the EU’s commitments to evaluate market impacts of  FLEGT licensing and the EU FLEGT VPA initiative the FLEGT Independent Market Monitor Project (IMM) has also launched its first newsletter and website (www.flegtIMM.eu). The IMM’s role is to monitor trade flows from FLEGT licensing and VPA countries and to gauge trade response to EU FLEGT initiative both in the latter and in the EU trade.  Surveys of the latter have already been undertaken in the seven leading tropical timber importing EU countries by IMM correspondents. Importers and traders are largely supportive of the FLEGT initiative, although highlight the need for more market communication about it and for more VPA countries to reach FLEGT licensing stage.

 

 

 

New tropical brand unveiled

A new tropical timber branding initiative is being launched by the ATIBT (International Tropical Timber Technical Association) focused on encouraging ‘qualitative and participatory’ consumption that is ‘respectful of mankind and the environment’.

The promotional campaign will focus on the brand ‘Fair & Precious’, which will be available for use by companies which “affirm their adherence to strict environmental standards and allocate significant budgets to ensure compliance as verified by audits conducted by independent bodies”.

These, at least initially, will be ATIBT’s core African tropical timber producer members, and their customers among timber processors, traders and distributors in Europe and around the world.

It’s hoped that businesses that will use and promote the brand will include public and private sector tropical timber procurers, specifiers, retailers and end-users large and small.

As well as the importance of sustainable procurement and the environment, a strong focus of the campaign will also be on social and corporate responsibility.

“Fair & Precious companies will participate in solidarity-based economic and social growth that is conducive to the well-being of people living in [tropical timber] production areas, providing them services such as education, health care and housing,” states the ATIBT.

“The brand will be administered from France, where ATIBT is based, but it is intended to be a European and even global promotional initiative,” said ATIBT Marketing Programme Coordinator Christine Le Paire. “Besides companies in African countries and France, our members include   Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, English, and American companies.”

Fair & Precious will be officially launched on November 8 by ATIBT President Robert Hunink at Paris’s Garden of Tropical Agriculture in Nogent-sur-Marne.

For more: www.fair-and-precious.org.

STTC Participant in the picture: City of Madrid’s year of sustainable tropical timber action

A wide range of projects are underway in Madrid as part of the city’s European Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition Action Plan.

The multi-faceted initiative is targeting the range of citizens, from timber suppliers and procurers, to school students. It is also including everything from online informational campaigns, literature and presentations, to tropical timber posters and brochures.

On signing up to the plan, the Madrid City Council Municipal Consumption Institute said that it aligned with the Spanish capital’s long-term commitment to minimise environmental impact and encourage responsible consumption. It has been an accredited Fair Trade City since 2011 and was one of the first cities to back the STTC on its launch in 2013.

More recently, Madrid’s drive for sustainability has stepped up again.

“The city is facing a new era with a new municipal government even more involved in these matters,” said the council in its Action Plan proposal. “It has led to Madrid becoming an example for other Spanish cities thanks to its capacity to raise public awareness and develop new initiatives for responsible consumption.”

As part of its broader civic Sustainable Consumption Plan, running to 2019, Madrid has launched an open access sustainable consumption website with information and links. Under the STTC Action Plan this will now include a section on sustainable tropical timber procurement, with articles, brochures and a diary of Action Plan Events.

Another project is the creation of ‘good practice files’, detailing sustainable tropical timber procurement best practice, for inclusion on the municipal website www.madrid.es.

Educational sustainable consumption workshops will also take place in schools in the final term of the year, targeting children and teenagers from five to 16. Offered to 345 schools, these will cover the environmental benefits of using sustainable tropical timber and responsible consumption of timber more generally.

Madrid is also set to host the fourth national meeting of Fair Trade Cities on October 26, including a presentation on tropical timber sustainability issues by Iván Bermejo Barbier of responsible trade NGO Copade.

Moreover, the latter has collaborated with the city in producing a special brochure for dissemination at municipal events detailing STTC activities. This includes sections on the role of sustainable tropical timber application in helping meet Sustainable Development Goals and life cycle assessment research supported by the STTC.

A sustainable tropical timber bus shelter poster campaign will also run in November and tropical timber events are planned for Madrid’s ‘emblematic new public space’ dedicated to promoting ‘responsible consumption in a social economy’. This is set to open in January 2018.

STTC mission merits industry support for future

The Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition (STTC) has recorded significant achievements in its first five years, but now needs wider industry input and backing to take its mission forward in support of European sustainable tropical timber market growth.

That is the view of the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), the founder and to date principal funder of the STTC, which has announced it will rein back its financial support and support the Coalition towards stronger ownership by industry from the end of 2018.

IDH Program Officer Nienke Sleurink said the STTC had more valuable work ahead.

“It’s done a lot already,” she said. “When it launched in 2013 the tropical timber market was in crisis due to the economic situation and had concerns other than the sustainability question. Now the market has picked up and interest in sustainability has revived and increased.  Against that backdrop, the STTC has become a hub which has made it easier to discuss the challenges and solutions for promoting sustainable tropical timber and has effectively created an enabling environment in support of the market for it.

“However, there is still scope for improvement. The timber industry’s energy and creativity in this area needs to be maintained and stepped up further, now that demand for tropical timber is picking up again. Strong, Europe wide commitments to sustainable sourcing continue to be needed to delink tropical timber trade from deforestation.”

IDH, she added, generally designed its programmes with an exit strategy and, as various STTC projects will finalise in 2018, it felt the end of next year was the right time to ‘transition’ the coalition over to the timber sector.

“We will continue to be involved and provide some support, perhaps as a secretariat, but our role will be more in an enabling capacity,” said Ms Sleurink.

The most likely option for the STTC going forward seems to be a membership structure. “But funding needs to be found for it and someone paid to coordinate it,” she said.

A poll of delegates at the recent STTC Conference in Aarhus, she added, showed there was a clear desire and mandate for the organisation to carry on and develop.

“We’d now like to hear from the industry and other STTC supporters, to get their input on how and in what form the STTC should continue,” she said.

To contribute your ideas email sleurink@idhtrade.org.

Netherlands leads in sustainably sourced market share

Source Mark van Benthem, Probos

According to independent research, certified sustainably sourced material holds a higher share of the timber market in the Netherlands than anywhere else in the world.

That’s one dramatic statement from the latest report of the Dutch market by non-profit forest products and sustainability institute Probos.

The detailed publication, covering the range of forest products and Probos’s fifth Netherlands report, also highlights the rapidity of the rise in sales of sustainably sourced products.

In 2005, they accounted for just 13.3% of Dutch sawn goods and wood-based panels sales and 0.5% of the paper and paperboard market. In 2015, the year up to which the report covers, those figures were 83.3% and 65.4% respectively. By volume, that translates into a rise in sustainably sourced lumber and panels of 3.6 million m3 RWE in a decade.

The study’s definition of sustainably sourced is demonstrating compliance with Dutch government procurement policy sustainability criteria. This comprises timber certified under FSC and PEFC schemes, but also, for the first time in 2015, the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), which is also now accepted by the Dutch authorities as demonstrable proof of sustainability.

Of sawn timber types, softwood boasts the highest sustainably sourced share at  85.4%, with tropical next at 63.3%.  Temperate hardwood lags at 33.7%, which is attributed to the market volumes of uncertified packaging material, but it saw the biggest rise in share since 2013. Highest sustainably sourced share of all goes to wood-based panels at 88.2%.

Despite the progress made, however, Probos says the Netherlands still has someway to go to achieve 100% sustainable sourcing, with some sources of supply more problematic than others. It also highlights that, while sustainably sourced tropical timber’s market share may have risen, the total size of the Dutch tropical market has shrunk dramatically, from 730,000 m3 RWE to 400,000 between 2005 and 2015.

“Hence, Dutch influence in encouraging suppliers to adopt sustainable forest management policies has been strongly reduced, giving even more cause for international cooperation to make timber flows world-wide more sustainable, such as via the European Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition (STTC),” states Mark van Benthem of Probos.

The next Netherlands report, covering 2017 is planned for next year. A study of the Belgian market covering 2016 is also underway.

A more detailed article on the study is available here and the full report can be downloaded here (Dutch only).

Delegates show commitment at STTC Conference 2017

Source Mark van Benthem, Probos

For an organisation dedicated to growing the EU market for sustainably sourced tropical timber, the Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition’s (STTC) conference this year got to the heart of the issue.

The title of the event in Aarhus, Denmark, Sustainably sourced tropical timber: Selling a positive story, was the core theme being promotion and marketing.

To tackle the topic, speakers came not only from across the EU timber sector, but also from NGOs and marketing agencies, with a keynote delivered by brands expert and marketeer Nigel Hollis, Executive Vice President of international consultancy Kantar Millward Brown.

Setting the scene, the conference began with tour of sustainable tropical timber applications across the host city.

The 110-strong international audience also heard presentations about STTC-backed marketing and promotion-centred Action Plans for developing and diversifying the European sustainable tropical timber market and encouraging  sustainable procurement programmes.

Mr Hollis highlighted the importance of confidence and differentiation in marketing. He also focused on the substance behind the message, stating that in any promotional campaign “great content is more than a great advertisement”.

Delegates were given a still broader perspective on sustainable tropical timber issues in 30-minute table talk sessions, with themes ranging from using Sustainable Development Goals in tropical timber sales and promotion, to the importance of market intelligence in boosting sustainably sourced timber demand. In addition they were challenged to come up with marketing themes.

The Conference closed with a call from STTC founder and backer IDH for ideas on the Coalition’s development as its funding programme in its current form finishes end 2018. A poll of delegates  backed the STTC’s continuation.

Read the full article here