As well as being the only labelling scheme that is recognised by the major environmental NGOs, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) timber certification scheme was recently accepted by the government as fullfilling its own contract definition of sustainable forest management, writes Chayley Collis of the Green Building Store.

FSC operates a global system that combines forest management certification and chain of custody certification to ensure that timber produced in certified forests can be traced from the forest to the end user. But what does it mean? The FSC system delivers three types of labels:

FSC 100%: All the timber in a product comes from an FSC-certified forest – nothing else may be used for any timber-based component

FSC Recycled: All timber content comes from verified post-consumer reclaimed material

FSC Mixed Sources: Content is a mixture of FSC certified virgin fibre (at least 10%) and other controlled material, which excludes material from illegal logging, uncertified high conservation value forest, areas of social conflict and GM trees.

To ensure the product you are specifying is FSC certified, the supplier must display a unique Chain of Custody certificate number on invoices and indicate which items are FSC certified. Only if the supplier holds Chain of Custody certification can it claim to sell FSC timber and/or products and use the FSC logo in its promotional literature.

Source

Construction Manager

Postscript

FSC UK provides a free basic Advisory Service with fact sheets and lists of FSC suppliers.

Tel: 01686 413916, Email: info@fsc-uk.org, www.fsc-uk.org

See also www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk