Contractors take Timber Certification Onsite

This month will see the completion of the world's first construction project to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. TiC talks to some of the people behind the green scheme and asks whether the project will have a ripple effect through the construction industry.

IT’S A SIGN of the times that the construction industry is looking seriously at its green credentials, and that developers aren’t always top of the environmentalists’ hit lists. Far from barring the way for diggers, green campaigners welcomed contractors onsite at the Ilford Wharf housing association scheme in Essex. The scheme, constructed by Hollybrook Homes, is the world’s first construction project to get full certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Ben Aycliffe, forest campaigner with FSC backer Greenpeace, tells TiC the project will set the standard for future timber procurement on construction sites.

“This project certification really clamps down on using non-certified timber and involves the whole supply chain,” he says. “Compared to any other building site we’ve been on, it seems such a common sense thing to do.”

Hollybrook has been constructing the complex for housing association Tower Homes. Independent certification body, BM Trada oversaw the development of the 73-home timber-frame housing complex. Full project certification requires that over 50% of the timber used is certified by the FSC and the rest is legal timber from controlled sources.

Placing contractors at the head of the supply chain

Alasdair McGregor, products and timber business manager for Trada Certification, says the project certification aims to involve builders in the supply chain. “It’s been put in place to deal with the issue of how FSC is recorded on the building site,” he says. “You can trace timber chain of custody back to the forest, but there are concerns about whether construction companies themselves are involved in the supply chain.”

For the Ilford Wharf project, the FSC scheme puts the builder firmly at the end of the supply chain and the timber used in the construction project is passed onto the client as part of the completed building.

To achieve FSC project certification, Trada considers aspects of the scheme such as when the timber is going to be arriving onsite or when it will be installed. It then identifies the risk of losing track of certified timber as it is used in the project.

“We evaluate how often we have to visit sites to see how the timber is handled and stored,” says McGregor. “We will make an initial valuation at the beginning of the project. As the project progresses that may change and we can reduce the amount of sampling if required, or increase it.”

Trada also talks to the builder to find out if all the contracts in place to make sure certified timber is purchased from registered companies.

“Part of the object of visiting the site is to make sure there are checks in place when the timber arrives on site,” McGregor explains, “and that there is someone there to make sure there is the right documentation. This could be a part of the company’s good management practices.”

But is it realistic for contractors to rely on timber certified under the FSC scheme for the whole project? After all, the scheme still only covers a comparatively small area of the world’s forest.

Building in flexibility

McGregor explains FSC project certification does allow contractors to use timber certified under different schemes, such as the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), but requires extra checks are carried out on them.

“Using only FSC-certified timber would exclude anything from Finland,” McGregor says, “which is a bigger supplier to the UK than any other country in the world. All Finland’s products are PEFC. This creates issues like how do you supply trussed rafters or timber-frame.”

He adds that the fierce rivalry between FSC and other schemes does not help contractors when it comes to procuring timber on projects such as Ilford Wharf. “How do you reconcile the fact that you’ve got two schemes that don’t talk to each other?” he asks. “FSC doesn’t recognise other schemes at all, which is part of the difficulty. PEFC would not automatically meet the requirements of FSC and contractors specifying its products would still have to carry out some additional research.”

Under project certification, non-FSC material must comply with a controlled wood standard. For example, suppliers must be able to prove they know the forest the timber was sourced from. They must also demonstrate elements such as that it was sourced legally, the forest was not earmarked for preservation and the timber did not come from a genetically modified source.

Beck Woodrow, construction advisor with the FSC’s UK Working Group says project certification avoids misunderstandings from occurring between developers and contractors as when information is passed along the supply chain. “The main thing is including subcontractors in the main certification,” she says. “It gives a water-tight guarantee that it covers the whole project.”

Woodrow says sometimes contractors can overlook temporary timber elements during the construction phase, such as hoardings.

“The specifications can get watered down if someone hasn’t got systems in place to make sure they go through,” she says. “By the time it goes to the guy who has to buy the timber, he might go off in his van and come back with timber that has something like a Timber Trades Federation membership, which doesn’t offer the same guarantees of legality and sustainability.”

Creating opportunities for contractors.

Auditing contractors to provide chain of custody for timber in the same way as suppliers such as Wolseley, Travis Perkins or Jewson, would be extremely difficult. Merchants and suppliers may keep the same products on their shelves for years, and may have long-term relationships with their own suppliers.

Contractors, on the other hand, face different requirements for each new project. They may work with steel frame on one scheme, and brick and block the next. One project may feature aluminium cladding, and a subsequent one Western red cedar. Whereas Trada audits some suppliers every five years, how, asks McGregor, does it audit a 12-month project such as Ilford Wharf?

“What would Hollybrook do with their certification for the other four years?” he asks. “The requirements for construction companies change from project to project and they wouldn’t always be required to have certification in place. Project certification has given the builder an incentive to get into the process, which in turn will distinguish it from its competitor.”

Trada is now talking to bigger players in the construction industry to get them involved in project specification. McGregor says the organisation has already seen some success. “For Hollybrook, the Ilford Wharf project has been a good experience for them,” he says. “It’s raised their profile a lot and is going to be a central way they market themselves in the future. We have recently signed up some of the largest construction companies for the scheme.”

Bovis Lend Lease has signed up for project certification, and Balfour Beatty will use it on a project to build a hospital on the Isle of Dogs in London. Trada has also spoken to companies such as Skanska, Robert McAlpine, Countryside Properties and Keepmoat.

McGregor says Hollybrook’s success in delivering the project on time and to budget has been a big selling point for future projects. “I got the impression that when we were explaining the costs associated with project certification, other contractors were pleasantly surprised,” he says. More broadly, McGregor feels that the success of the Ilford Wharf project will raise the profile of timber certification throughout the construction industry.

FSC has placed contractors at a crucial stage in the supply chain, which will do its own scheme the world of good. Project certification will also give contractors the opportunity to enter into a dialogue with their clients and their suppliers about the sustainability and legality of the materials they use.

“In the past builders were making all sorts of claims, but there were no ways of backing that up,” McGregor says. “One real positive that’s come out of this is it’s helped to clarify the role of the builder in the supply chain. The ripple effect from this project will raise the profile of certified timber no end.”