Read Veneers Becomes FSC Certified

Essex wood veneer company Read Veneers is proud to announce that they have recently become Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) certified. For Read Veneers, certification from the FSC® is confirmation of a commitment to sourcing wood from responsibly managed forests throughout the world and a stand against deforestation.

What is the Forest Stewardship Council?

The FSC was formed in 1993 to address growing public concern over deforestation.  It is a not-for-profit organisation that’s backed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace and The Woodland Trust.

The FSC has calculated that “each year an area half the size of the UK is cleared of natural forests: temperate and tropical, North and South and on every continent.”  This has a real impact on local communities, economies, on the natural balance of the terrain, on wildlife and on some of the world’s poorest people who rely on the forests for their living.

Illegally traded wood can be found everywhere, which is where the FSC steps in. Wood that is certified by the FSC is guaranteed to have been grown and sourced from well-managed forests.

FSC UK independently supports forest management throughout the UK.

Commitment and Dedication: The Journey to Becoming FSC Certified

For Read Veneers, becoming FSC certified was a natural step, but it wasn’t an easy one. Certification by the FSC involves much auditing and assessing by certification bodies.  These assessors check that all operating standards are compliant with the FSC’s standards. This includes forest management and chain of custody which tracks production throughout the whole process involved in creating the product; from the raw material right through to point of sale.

In short, each and every aspect of the wood veneer company is assessed and monitored. The certification stands for five years, with in-depth annual surveillance checks to ensure that FSC standards continue.

What Being an FSC Certified Company Means

For Read Veneers, being an FSC certified wood veneer company means that, on request, we can guarantee that the wood used in our veneers and substrates arefrom , responsibly managed forests.  It is verification of a commitment that has always been important to the company – to only use wood that has come from approved and well-managed forests and that does not have a negative impact on the local community or the environment. This certification gives credibility too and allows consumers to make a conscious and educated decision when buying wooden products.

Choosing an FSC Certified company means you can be assured that when you specify FSC the highest levels of social, environmental and ethical forest management are applied to your product.

For more information on the FSC natural wood veneers produced by Read Veneers, take a look around our website. For further details of the work of the Forest Stewardship Council, visit http://www.fsc-uk.org/.