EWPAA Wins Chain of Custody Accreditation

16 January 2008
The Engineered Wood Products Association of Australasia (EWPAA) has been granted JAS-ANZ accreditation as a certification body under the Australian Forest Certification Scheme Chain of Custody Standard.
General manager Simon Dorries said the accreditation would allow EWPAA, as an independent third party Australian certification body, to issue certificates of conformity to wood products businesses obtaining their wood products from certified forests.
“This gives an assurance to consumers that the forest and wood products they are purchasing are from forests managed to the highest possible standards,” Dorries said.
“The chain of custody process basically is an inventory control system providing a quality assurance standard that tracks a wood or forest product through the supply chain.
"This accreditation by JAS-ANZ provides a measure of the competence, independence, integrity and impartiality of the certification bodies providing the users with confidence in the subsequent certifications.”
The Australian Forestry Standard is the leading management standard of the Australian Forest Certification Scheme, which certifies extensive areas of native forests and plantations across Australia. The AFCS also includes a Chain of Custody Standard (AS 4707-2006) to track forest and wood products from their origins in a certified forest through the supply chain to their end use by the consumer. Organisations obtaining forest and wood products from certified forests can utilise this process to provide the end consumer with assurance that their products have been sourced from a certified forest.

New Shine On Timber In Green Star Rating

The Green Building Council of Australia is reviewing the Material category with the aim of establishing a new approach to sustainable timber.
Green Star executive director (acting) Robin Mellon says this is part of the council’s commitment to continuous improvement of the Green Star standard.
It is intended that the review will establish an environment in which all timber certification schemes can be assessed in a transparent and equitable manner. This would differ from the acceptance of a specific timber certification scheme, which raised concerns in some sectors about being prescriptive or exclusive.
The GBCA has determined that the best way to approach the Mat-8 Sustainable Timber credit is to specify a set of leading best practice criteria under which a submission from a particular project can be assessed. The GBCA believes this would have the effect of driving market demand for sustainable timber practices, with the outcome an improvement in the overall environmental performance of the timber industry.
“Best practice will mean that the GBCA is setting specific criteria that must be met for timber used in a project, in order to gain points under this Green Star credit,” Mellon said.
“A four-credit criteria report now in draft form will be the first steps/benchmarks in steering the timber industry towards greater sustainability. More criteria may follow within the next year or so.”
The proposed GBCA credit (Public Review January 2008) – Mat-8 Sustainable Timber – encourages and recognises the specification of re-used timber products or timber from sources that have environmentally responsible forest management practices. It notes that compliance with this credit can be demonstrated by provision of proof of chain of custody from a recognised forest certification scheme (such as FSC, AFS, PEFC, etc). Timber that does not have a chain of custody from a forest certification scheme will not comply with this credit.
All comments on the proposed credit should be sent to materials@gbcaus.org by close of business on Thursday, 31 January, to be considered as part of the feedback.

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