The new online forest certification system aims to provide a simple and cost-effective solution to assist the UK’s small and medium-sized private forest owners to become PEFC-certified. The new tool is designed to help increase the UK’s certified forest area and boost the supply of certified material to the UK primary processing sector and its customers.
Developed in conjunction with Dutch consultant Evan Buytendijk BV, PEFC UK are confident that the online forest certification system will act as an aid to Group Certification managers, to enable these schemes to function more efficiently, reduce costs and become a user-friendly means of assessing the compatibility of existing forest management plans with those required by UKWAS, and provide more consistent audits via a series of easy to follow online checklists.
“Forestry in the UK is entering an interesting phase,” said Alun Watkins, who heads up PEFC in the UK. “There is an ever-growing focus on homegrown material and the future will see large amounts of UK material entering the supply chain to fuel products such as new innovative engineered material and the biomass sector. It is really important that forest owners of all sizes seek to become certified as the market is now demanding responsible sourcing as the norm."
"Our new online tool assists with reducing the cumbersome paperwork generated by the sustainable forest management process and is designed to be user-friendly and provide an easy path for those seeking to become PEFC-certified,” concluded Mr. Watkins.
PEFC is the world's largest forest certification system.