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Falkirk council has won an award for its work on sustainable timber procurement.
The council's work on monitoring its building awards framework contract won it the silver pledge award from WWF-UK.
From January to August this year, the council ensured that only legal and sustainable timber was being delivered to its depots and stores.
WWF's local authority sustainable timber procurement pledge scheme forms part of the organisation's What Wood You Choose? campaign which aims to highlight the impact of using illegal and unsustainable wood and wood products.
Twenty two councils in Scotland have made a bronze, silver or gold-level pledge to improve the way they purchase wood and paper. Fife Council was the first council in Scotland to achieve a silver-level award for its practice in purchasing sustainable wood and paper. The pledge campaign will continue until November, by which point WWF aims to get 50 more local authorities across the UK to sign up to the sustainable timber pledge.
Commenting on the award, Councillor Dr Craig R Martin, Falkirk Council's Convener of Environment and Community Safety, said: "We have made a commitment to buy our timber ethically showing our commitment to help protect the environment by not buying timber from illegal logging which is causing massive damage to natural environments.
"We will continue to work with other organisations to help protect natural habitats across the world and are pleased to be one of only a few Scottish local authorities to be awarded Silver status. We hope to achieve Gold status later this year".
The UK is the third highest importer of products made from illegal timber in Europe after Germany and Italy.
From March 2013, the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) will ban illegally harvested timber and timber products from the UK. Recent research undertaken by WWF has shown that, despite the upcoming introduction of legislation to halt the import of illegally sourced wood products, more than half of UK local authorities don't have a legal and sustainable timber procurement policy.
(NE)
