The Role of FSC in Green Public Procurement (GPP)

In the European Union, new public procurement directives apply from 18 April 2016. These allow for the inclusion of environmental – and to some extent social – requirements in public procurement.

The directives, about which FSC has produced an introduction and clarification, also allow for the use of specific labels as evidence of compliance with sustainable procurement policies.

Further to this, the World Trade Organization’s revised Agreement on Government Procurement (AGP) covers government purchase of goods, services, and construction work.

Article X – Technical Specifications and Tender Documentation, which came into force in April 2014, introduces the explicit right of procurers to apply “technical specifications to promote the conservation of national resources or protect the environment”.

Obviously this does not include explicit approval for including social elements of sustainable production. But according to a legal review of this new AGP, “there seems to be no fundamental reason why social criteria should be treated differently”(Lucia Tosoni, in EPPPL - European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, nr. 1 1, 2013, page 47).

A number of countries have therefore included the requirement of certified wood-based products in their procurement guidelines. Some have set up a system to assess the performance of forest certification schemes. The Netherlands and United Kingdom stand out with their detailed verification methods, including stakeholder consultations, implemented by independent assessment bodies (TPAC in the Netherlands and CPET in the UK) every five years.

In other countries, government bodies assess compliance with legal and sustainability criteria (e.g. in Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland).

In the countries mentioned above, FSC certification is specifically mentioned as acceptable proof for compliance with their public procurement requirements. Many other countries are less specific or lack requirements.

Setting your own specific requirements for responsible forest management can be problematic. Procurers are not allowed to specify in which countries the timber has to be harvested, so their technical specifications have to encompass all relevant forest types and social situations.

Procurers can also refer in general to “responsible forest management” and point at one or more inter-governmental decisions in which this concept is being defined. But those descriptions are usually rather general. And they still have to take into account the risk of illegal logging and trade.

For that reason it is practical to, on the one hand, be as specific as possible with qualifications about what responsible forest management means to you and, on the other hand, mention the specific forest management standard/label(s) for which you provide evidence of compliance (while never forgetting to allow 'equivalent' evidence, to avoid violation of procurement laws).

Ambitious procurers can use the FSC Principles and Criteria requirements as the basis for their description. You could for example require that at least 70% of forest materials have to be from responsibly-managed forests complying with these requirements, and the rest to be from recycled origin and/or controlled wood. With such requirements spelled out, it is logical to refer to FSC (or 'equivalent') as the evidence of compliance.

Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is a widely used tool for understanding the environmental impacts of production, use, and discharge of goods. But it has limitations when forestry, fishing, mining, or agriculture are at the start of the supply chain. It also does not address social issues.

FSC calls upon all those who apply, use, or require LCA to recognise its limitations, and to address these with guarantees that negative impacts beyond the scope of LCA are prevented or minimised. For paper and other wood-based products, FSC certification is the best way of doing this.

More information.

Wood is an important component in many public projects, such as buildings, houses, harbours, waterworks and railways.

Sourcing the massive amounts of wood needed for public projects from responsibly-managed forests can make a considerable environmental and social difference. Construction firms have to be FSC-certified in order to be able to claim the use of FSC-certified materials.

FSC provides added value, not added cost. FSC products are not necessarily more expensive. When there is a price difference it is often marginal. And FSC certification brings many benefits to our certificate holders, such as a reduction in costs and increased profits, while also allowing greater efficiencies in work processes by choosing a lesser known timber species.

Higher prices for FSC timber typically happen due to direct competition with forest operations that are undertaking illegal activities. Before making a purchase, procurers should ensure that the forest operation:

• did not remove more trees than permitted or is ecologically acceptable
• did not evade taxes
• did not ignore the rights of indigenous peoples
• ensured workers were paid a fair wage in safe conditions.