Openness and dialogue: public consultation on wood acquisition areas and the company’s own Due Diligence system
Tuesday, February 27th, a public consultation was organized in Tg. Mures by Holzindustrie Schweighofer (HS) Sebes and Reci sawmills. The main themes of the event were addressed in the context of the implementation of the company’s action plan for a sustainable wood industry and its’ commitment to dialogue and transparency.
Non-governmental environmental organizations, employers' associations, public institutions, harvesting, transport and woodworking companies, private forest managers, representatives of the forestry directorates and the Chambers of Commerce participated in the meeting. The stakeholders were consulted on the acquisition areas, but also the HS Due Diligence mechanism was presented to ensure that the provenance of the timber purchased and delivered to the company's factories can be traced all the way to the harvesting.
Sustainable Wood Industry
A sustainable wood industry in Romania is not possible without three extremely important items: strict control, certification and reforestation. Istvan Tőke, President of PEFC™ Romania, presented the International Forest Certification Program (PEFC), applied in two thirds of the world's forests; Adrian Dulgheru, Purchasing Manager, Holzindustrie Schweighofer, explained how Timflow operates, the wood traceability monitoring system based on GPS technology for registering log truck deliveries to HS factories; and Ionuţ Apostol, Tomorrow's Forest Project Manager, gave all the details about the afforestation project carried out by Holzindustrie Schweighofer in partnership with the Association of Forest Administrators and the "Stefan cel Mare" University in Suceava.
“Forest certification is a voluntary system of inspection and tracking of timber and other forest products exploited or harvested under a strict set of regulations. Certification is not limited to trees that are cut. It also takes into account the social and economic well-being of forest workers as well as of local communities” – Istvan Tőke, President of PEFC Romania
“Timflow is the central measure of the complex action plan that Holzindustrie Schweighofer has been implementing for over a year. With this modern and accurate system, our policy of zero tolerance for non-proven deliveries can be better applied: the route of each truck delivering logs is monitored from the point of loading to the gate of our factories. Details of all shipments are public on the Timflow website, in Romanian and English” – Adrian Dulgheru, Purchasing Manager, Holzindustrie Schweighofer
“We must plant now, so that future generations have the environmental, social and economic benefits of these forests that will take decades to mature. This spring, we will carry out a series of reforestation projects with diverse features, from areas recently affected by forest fires to areas that have been degraded for years, or even decades. The beneficiaries of our project are, for the most part, community organizations and local administrations” – Ionut Apostol, Project Manager Tomorrow’s Forest
