Ecotimber is committed to the responsible purchasing of forests products. To translate policy into practice Ecotimber supports the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC’s) forest certification system, believing it to be the most rigorous of the certification systems that are operational at the moment. Currently more than 95% of our products are FSC certified and it is our long-term intention to source all forest products from FSC certified sources, or from acceptable sources for reclaimed timber.

Ecotimber will not source forest products from:

• Forests or forest product suppliers that do not comply with all relevant national and international legislation relating to the trade in forest products.
• High Conservation Value Forests where these are recognized nationally or regionally, unless these forests are progressing towards credible forest certification in a time-bound, stepwise and transparent manner.
• Protected areas, Parks or similar where harvesting operations are not complimentary to responsible forest management.
• Forests which are currently being converted to other land uses, or forests that have been converted since 1994.
• Forests which are in areas of armed conflict or civil unrest where there is a direct relationship between the forest products trade and the funding of such conflicts.

To ensure these goals are achieved, Ecotimber will:

• Follow and endorse FSC policies, practices and procedures.
• Seek information on the source of all forest products
• Evaluate this information against our stated policy
• Continually improve the level of compliance against these policies with regular reviews and actions as agreed with our suppliers
• Work with and encourage suppliers who are actively engaged in the process of a time-bound, transparent and step-wise commitment to credible certification.
• Work with key stake holders, in particular specifiers and end-users of timber products, to ensure best practice is followed.

Ecotimber will abide by all local and national laws and international conventions (including but not limited to Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), World Heritage Convention (WHC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as moratoria on logging, declarations of protected areas, forestry laws, environmental protection legislation, as well as labour and social laws.

Ecotimber will never knowingly become involved in, collude with or purchase timber from illegal logging operations. We will work with our supply chain to ensure that all forest products originate from forests where there is full legal and verifiable title to the land, and the harvester has all relevant and current permits and approvals; ensuring products are extracted with full authorisation, permits and approvals from all relevant government agencies.