Thursday, February 4, 2016

Oak Furniture Land Customers Could Be Contributing to Illegal Deforestation?






WWF criticises Oak Furniture Land for 'lack of transparency' on timber sourcing
Will Green  20 October 2015

Oak Furniture Land has been criticised by campaigners for a lack of transparency on its timber sourcing policy.

WWF said despite “repeated approaches” the company has “not shown that it has taken any steps towards publishing either a policy on where it sources its timber, or figures that indicate timber is coming from well-managed forests”.

WWF said Oak Furniture Land scored “zero trees” in its Timber Scorecard, launched in July 2015 and which rates companies on their sourcing standards.

The charity said a zero score was given to firms that are “failing to tell customers if their products are made from sustainable timber, and therefore could be at risk of selling products that are contributing to deforestation”.

More than a third of the 128 assessed firms scored zero trees on the latest Timber Scorecard while half received either two or three trees, the highest score.

Julia Young, manager of WWF’s global forest and trade network programme in the UK, said: “Lack of transparency is unacceptable in an age of ongoing forest loss. How can companies think it is fine to continue like this, telling customers they are responsible and should be trusted, but not sharing any policy or performance information to back it up?

“It seems Oak Furniture Land, for example, is disregarding timber sustainability, despite relying on timber for their business success. Right now, we don’t know if the wood it uses is sourced from well managed forests or not – and nor do its millions of customers.”

Oak Furniture Land did not respond to a request for comment.

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WWF puts pressure on Oak Furniture Land and Fender to sort out wood procurement policies
Charles Wark, 22 May 2015

A new WWF-UK study has raised concerns about the ability of some UK companies – not least Oak Furniture Land and Fender – to prove where their wood supply comes from.

Customers could unwittingly be buying products containing wood from threatened forests. Some products are not covered by the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which requires companies to make sure that the wood their products are made from comes from a legal source.

In nearly a third of the products sent for laboratory analysis, the results found that the wood was different to the one declared by the retailer

The WWF study was designed to see if companies that were selling non-EUTR covered products – such as chairs, musical instruments and toys – had done sufficient checks to ensure they were at least made from wood from legal sources. 26 products from 17 different companies were tested.

In nearly a third of the products sent for laboratory analysis, the results found that the wood was different to the one declared by the retailer, and nearly half of the companies were selling products made from timber from areas that experience high levels of illegal logging.

Most of the companies were either unable or not prepared to tell researchers where the wood came from, even when they were told by WWF that they were selling products made of high risk wood.

In the WWF timber testing work there were seven companies selling timber from regions where there are risks of illegal logging. These companies did not have information on their websites about their policy on ensuring the wood in their products is from a legal or sustainable source.

Julia Young, the manager of WWF’s Global Forest and Trade Network programme at WWF-UK said: “We purchased goods from 17 companies, and not one could provide evidence that they had carried out sufficient due diligence.

“We cannot continue to have a market where customers cannot be sure the product they buy is made from the wood declared. In the absence of better information from companies that their wood has come from a legally or sustainably logged forest, customers are in the dark.

“We’re calling for improvements to the EUTR, as currently companies can still legally sell certain products that have been made of illegally logged wood. We also want far more transparency on sourcing practices and performance.

“We are heartened that as a result of this work, new businesses are now engaging with us to find out how to improve their due diligence, and 40 others have already signed up to our campaign. The forest campaign involves a pledge to buy from legal and sustainable sources. This is the right way to go and we want more companies to take this challenge and their responsibility seriously.”

Almost 70,000 people have signed the WWF-UK #SaveForests petition.

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Is Oak Furniture Environment-Friendly?   by Stephen O.