Controlling illegal logging: using public procurement policy

The shared responsibility of timber-consuming and timber-producing countries in restricting trade in illegal timber has been recognised since the early days of the international focus on illegal logging. Consumer countries contribute to the problem by providing markets for the products of illegal activities, and by failing to implement systems to prevent their import. However, several EU member states and a number of other countries now possess government procurement policies aimed at ensuring that public purchasers source only legal and/or sustainable timber and wood products. This paper provides a brief guide to how public procurement policies for timber currently operate.

The paper makes the following points:

• many countries already possess some form of green procurement policy into which criteria for legal and sustainable timber can easily be fitted. In general no new legislation is needed, so this offers a relatively rapid route to tackling imports of illegal timber
• nine countries currently possess some form of timber procurement policy at central government level. Although they are all very recent in implementation, the evidence already suggests that they are having a positive effect on increasing market share for verified legal and sustainable timber
• the adoption of different criteria and coverage of products risks make it more difficult for exporters to provide supplies of timber; some degree of technical harmonisation would be desirable, and seems likely
• the inclusion of requirements for legal and sustainable timber in building standards provides another route for promoting these products. At present, however, the points-based systems that these standards are based on usually encourage, rather than require, sustainable timber

It concludes that procurement policies aimed at excluding illegal and unsustainable timber products have proved a valuable weapon in the armoury of consumer states. They can be developed and implemented more rapidly than most other policy options, and the evidence suggests that they can have a much broader impact on consumer markets than simply through the direct effect of government purchases.

Nevertheless, the paper highlights the following key implementation problems that remain to be tackled:

• the danger of too much variability in policies
• creating possible barriers to exports
• the practical problems of ensuring the policies are followed by the thousands of government buyers
• promoting the approach among regional and local government