One year on….is your joinery business risking a prosecution under the EU Timber Regulation?

The EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) prohibits the placing of illegally harvested timber on the EU market and lays out the procedures which those trading timber within the EU must put in place to minimise the risk of illegal timber being sold.

The National Measurement Office (NMO), who are enforcing the legislation have been asking for evidence from joinery companies to demonstrate that they are compliant with the rules which came into force in the UK on 3 March 2013. Many BWF members have also received correspondences from clients such as housebuilders asking what they have been doing to comply with the regulation.

The legislation may be referred to in a number of ways, for example as ‘EU 995/2010’, ‘The EU timber Regulation’, the ‘EUTR’ or the ‘Timber and Timber Products (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2013’, which is the regulation putting in place the measures necessary to enforce the EUTR in the UK.

Complying with the EUTR

Many joinery businesses will find that the transactions they make are already compliant with the EUTR. This is because companies trading in timber and timber products within the EU (known as ‘traders’) must simply keep records of sale and purchase. Their obligations under Article 5 of the Regulation concern traceability and are as follows:

1. To identify the operators or the traders who have supplied the timber and timber products.
2. To identify, where applicable, the traders to whom you have supplied timber and timber products.
3. To keep this information for at least five years and provide it to competent authorities if they so request.

If selling on to a final consumer, the requirement to identify to whom you have supplied timber and timber products is deemed not applicable.

BWF members that bring timber products in directly from outside the EU will find compliance more complex. They will need to have a due diligence system in place and this requirements will apply even if the transaction is on a one-off basis. Relying on their suppliers to carry out due diligence on their behalf will not be enough for compliance.

BWF has written a template due diligence guidance document (broken down into 6 key documents) which members bringing in timber products directly from outside the EU will be able to download and adapt to help comply with the legislation. The due diligence system must include:

1. Information about the supply of timber products, including description, species, country of harvest, quantity, name and address of supplier and trader and documents indicating compliance with the applicable legislation
2. An evaluation the risk of placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the market.
3. Unless the risk of illegality is negligible, takes steps to mitigate this risk; for example, additional information, third party verification

We have also written an 'easy guide to the EUTR' which gives further information on the legislation for both ‘traders’ and ‘operators’.

Penalties for non-compliance

Penalties proposed in the UK regulations will mean that both traders and operators could be hit by heavy fines for failing to comply with the EU timber regulation, with imprisonment a possible course of action against operators disobeying the rules.

Traders who fail to maintain adequate records of timber product transactions could be subject to a fine of up to £5,000. The penalties for those that place illegal timber on the EU market or have an inadequate due diligence system could be a term of imprisonment of up to two years and/or an unlimited fine.

Inspectors will have the powers to seize timber – from both traders and operators – which they reasonably believe to be illegally harvested and to either remove it or prevent its movement

Chain of Custody

For companies needing to set up a due diligence system, FSC and PEFC certification should help businesses to comply by enabling them to carry out their due diligence within the scope of their certification. The BWF manages a Chain of Custody Group Scheme for companies with 15 or fewer employees who wish to gain FSC or certification, or companies of 50 or fewer that want PEFC certification.