FSC informs European Union Governments about new COC standards - October 29th, 2004

In a meeting on public procurement organized by the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) and the Danish and Dutch governments,representatives from the Forest Stewardship Council, other non-governmental organizations, and a number of European Union governments met to discuss public procurement of wood products.

Sofia Ryder, Policy Officer responsible for the Chain of Custody policies at the FSC International Center, informed participants of the FSC's new controlled wood standards, their scope and how they deal with legality, social issues and verification.

"There was some discussion about the desirability and feasibility of harmonizing member states' procurement policies for wood products", explained Sofia Ryder. "There was broad agreement that a starting point would be harmonization of key concepts and definitions. FSC already forms part of many procurement specifications. More importantly for the future, FSC already provides international definitions on many of these aspects."

During the meeting, a number of the European Union governments presented their approaches to public procurement of wood products. Some of the pioneering governments' (United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany)procurement policies are outlined by RIIA in a draft discussion paper titled, "Public Procurement of Timber, EU member state initiatives for sourcing legal and sustainable timber'.

The European Commission also presented the new European Union Procurement Directive and their interpretation of the directive as it relates to the 'greening' of timber procurement. A paper produced by the EC titled,'Buying Green A handbook on public procurement', which contains a chapter on timber, was launched on 29th October in Brussels.

Detailed discussions also occurred around the content of individual member states' policies, including definitions of legality, legality versus 'sustainability', verification of criteria and claims, and information and support for the development of policies.

A number of European Union governments were present as well as other certification schemes and WWF, Greenpeace, Fern, ProForest, Timber Trade Federation UK, and the European Harwood and Softwood Federations.

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