The UK includes social criteria in timber procurement policy

The UK procurement policy thus follows the example set by the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. The social criteria have been finalised following public stakeholder consultation
 

Scope and evaluation of social criteria

The social criteria require that the management of the forest must have full regard for the interests of indigenous peoples, local communities and forest workers. Issues such as tenure and use rights, means of resolving grievances and disputes, and the safeguarding the basic labour, and health and safety rights of forest workers are covered by the criteria.   

The criteria include more specific requirements for each topic. For example, to fulfill the UK requirements for labour rights of forest workers, certification standards must include requirements to exclude child labour, forced labour, and discrimination, and to ensure freedom of association.

However, the provisions for evaluating certification schemes' compliance with the social criteria include the following clause: Where the criterion is adequately addressed by legal requirements in all countries where a scheme can be used, the standard need not make explicit reference to the subject matter of the criterion provided that the standard requires legal compliance. 

This provision seems to imply that the certification schemes' audtiors will review all applicable law paragraphs, based on a general requirement for legal compliance in the certification standard. In our experience, this is not feasible; normally the auditor will look for any court cases or other signs of law violations to check for general legal compliance. Exempting standards from explicitly including criteria on this basis implies considerably less assurance of compliance.
 

Forest conversion and national performance

Sofie Tind Nielsen from the UK Central Point of Expertise on Timber Procurement (CPET) also presented new draft evaluation criteria covering two additional issues.

The UK will now also evaluate how the certification schemes address the critical issue of conversion of natural forests into industrial plantations.

For example, do the schemes limit the access to certification for plantations established by converting natural forest in recent times?

The criteria will also be expanded to cover evaluation of the national application of certification schemes, to assess the schemes’ performance on the ground. This will be done through a combination of stakeholder consultation and an assessment of a selection of national schemes to evaluate how the schemes’ global requirements are transmitted to the national schemes.

The UK Technical Panel providing assistance to developing and strengthening the UK public procurement policy has stressed “the importance of including evidence of implementation: the existence of documented systems on its own would not provide sufficient assurance that all requirements applicable at a national level are being fulfilled”.

The draft criteria for conversion and national application are now under stakeholder consultation. The consultation period ends on 10 March and the full set of revised criteria is expected to be published towards the end of March.
 

Re-assessment of certification schemes

Certification schemes currently accepted under the UK procurement policy - FSC and PEFC (including all PEFC-endorsed national schemes) – will be re-evaluated against the updated criteria this spring.

The UK evaluation procedure is based on a scoring system, where a minimum score must be obtained for all criteria in order for the scheme to be admitted under the procurement policy.

In the last UK assessment, the FSC system scored 47 points, while the PEFC system scored 41.

During the re-assessment, CPET expects to carry out a limited number of samples among selected national FSC and PEFC schemes, to verify that criteria are adequately met at the national level. Stakeholders are also invited to submit evidence of non-compliance by the schemes before 7th May 2010.