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Supporting Businesses to be Forest Responsible and Address Environmental Risks

Businesses face a growing challenge to verify legality and sustainability of products. Compliance requirements and market preferences have changed; businesses must now compete in a market that prefers responsible products.

Businesses must respond to these challenges by being Forest Responsible; ensuring that their products are not linked in any way to deforestation, illegal practices or environmental destruction.

TFT has a ten-year track record of assisting businesses to become Forest Responsible and can help your business too.

Our support enables clients to meet legal and market demands, reduce business costs, increase revenue streams, enhance corporate profiles, and mitigate environmental risk by ensuring product supply chains don't destroy forests.

Being Forest Responsible conserves the forests that underpin tomorrow's supply chains.

FOREST RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTS

Large swaths of forest are cleared to cultivate soy used as feed for the chickens and pigs raised for human consumption. Similarly, forests are cleared and converted to palm plantations to supply the palm oil found in 10% of supermarket products. Endangered forests also are destroyed to provide pasture land for cattle grazing.

In addition to the impact of industrialized agriculture, the roads and facilities built by other industries, such as mining, threaten forests and negatively impact climate.

Businesses face a growing challenge to verify product legality and sustainability.

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LEGALITY AND TRACEABILITY

Lacey Act & EU legislation

With the amendment of The Lacey Act to include wood and plant products, the global wood trade is now on notice that the US Government is serious about tackling the issue of illegal wood and with similar regulations on the way in the EC, companies must now ensure that tracking and tracing of product supply chains are in place across their whole business.

TFT can help, with a ten-year track record of successfully assisting businesses; we are in the best position to assist companies to clear their supply chains of illegal wood.

TFT's Traceability Systems analyzes your environmental risk, helps you develop an action plan to eliminate your risks, and moves you forward to meet demands for legal compliance (Lacey Act and FLEGT) and certification.

TFT staff work intensively in factories and forests to facilitate the development and provide ongoing monitoring of robust Wood Control Systems (WCS), also known as Chain of Custody (CoC) systems.

A wood control system enables wood products to be traced back to the forest source and provide assurance that other, potentially illegal, wood has been prohibited from entering the supply chain at any point.

TFT's WCS approach involves understanding the current wood flow in each factory, identifying any issues or weaknesses, and then providing recommendations, training and monitoring to implement a robust WCS system.

Specific services include:

Supply chain analysis, management and training
Product and shipment tracking to demonstrate compliance with policies and laws and that wood supply chains are free of illegal products
Support on declarations and other requirements under Lacey and other policies
Training for staff and suppliers on how to ensure compliance with Lacey Act and other policies
Chain of Custody training and advice
Understanding and implementing FSC Controlled Wood policies

Ensuring your products come from legally verified forest operations is the first step towards Forest Responsibility.

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SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY

Working towards sustainable forest management is the next logical step once legality has been verified, and many companies now choose to work towards Forest Stewardship Council certification.

By improving the sustainability of management practices in the forests TFT helps forests reach independent third party certification for forest management, such as the Forest Stewardship council (FSC).

Sustainable Forest Management moves the forests that anchor your supply chain toward Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.

FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world's forests. The FSC has developed a widely respected set of forest management standards, these standards form the basis of the work plans TFT develops in partnership with the forest companies working towards SFM.

Specific services include:

Preparation and training for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
Forest Management assessments
Product sourcing and developing market connections

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HOW TO ENGAGE

TFT offers two ways to help businesses become Forest Responsible:

You can engage with TFT as a Business Client or as a TFT Member:

1. Business Client

We assist you with specific projects on a fee for service basis

2. TFT Member

We assist you through a structured program that mitigates your environmental risk, delivers a path to certification and allows you, through the use of the TFT logo and other means, to communicate with external stakeholders around what you are doing to be Forest Responsible.

We have Members in Europe, North America, South East Asia, Africa and Oceania. They include multi-national retail giants, small ‘high street' retailers, suppliers dealing in thousands of containers and others that import fewer than 10 containers a year.

See the Member pages for additional information on benefits and specifics on TFT membership.

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TFT Projects typically go through six stages:

1. Assess the forest or factory for its potential to become sustainably managed and to supply TFT members with timber.

2. Carry out a Gap Assessment to determine which actions are needed to achieve legality, sustainability and certification.

3. Sign a cooperation agreement with the forest or factory owners.

4. Develop of a Certification Action Plan (CAP) with the managers, based on the Gap Assessment findings, and addressing all environmental, social and economic aspects of forest management identified.

5. Help the managers implement the Certification Action Plan and link the products to TFT Member businesses.

6. Continue to monitor and support the forest or factory after certification to raise standards further and address any new problems.

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