Sustainable Timber: A Survey of UK Retailers

This questionnaire is part of a research collaboration between the Forest Stewardship Council® UK (FSC® UK), and the Ethical Consumer Research Association. We are seeking data regarding the sale of sustainable timber and timber-derived products among the UK’s ten largest supermarkets.

The ultimate goal of this research is to share data among UK consumers in a short report which communicates the impact and importance of making sustainable choices in this area. Building on the work of the WWF Global Forest Trade Network (GFTN) and the Ethical Consumer Markets report, future reports hope to be able to reflect on year on year growth of sustainable product sales. We are keen to receive data from any retailer but, depending on the responses received, we may limit the published report to specific sectors.

The information provided will be treated as confidential and only aggregated figures in various categories will be incorporated into any public report. If you would like a formal non-disclosure agreement to be used, please let us know.

Part of this research is designed to establish what kind of data each retailer holds on this subject. If you collect your data in a different way that may still be useful for this project we would be interested to find our more, so please specify this.
Guidance

Please complete all sections of the questionnaire possible. If the question is not applicable or data not available then please state this.

If data is potentially compromised, for example, due to recording methodology, or should be caveated in some way, please state this.

This questionnaire is only concerned with the products themselves, not the outer packaging. There is however a separate question (Q4) towards the end of the questionnaire about packaging and the role of sustainable sources in it.
Definitions of terms

Paper / pulp: timber-derived products made of paper or pulp, e.g. printer paper, toilet tissue, stationery.

Wood: products made of or containing solid timber, e.g. wooden furniture, wooden kitchenware such as bowls.

Other: products made of or containing products that are within the scope of FSC certification, such as: bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose / textiles / garments.

FSC certified (full chain of custody): The FSC chain of custody (CoC) is the path taken by products from the forest, or in the case of recycled materials from the moment when the material is reclaimed, to the point where the product is sold with an FSC claim and/or it is finished and FSC labelled.

For a product to be claimed as FSC certified (full chain of custody), it must be purchased from an organisation with FSC chain of custody certification and accompanied by sales documents bearing an FSC claim for the product.

FSC certified (no full chain of custody): FSC-certified products which have not been sourced from an organisation with FSC chain of custody certification and accompanied by sales documents bearing an FSC claim for the product.

Question Title

* Preliminary details

1. Sustainable Timber Policy

Question Title

* 1a. Does your company have a policy related to the sustainable sourcing of timber and timber-derived products?

Question Title

* 1b. Please state your sustainable timber policy here, or provide a website address where the policy can be found, and/or attach as a file below.

Question Title

* Please attach your sustainable timber policy

PDF, DOC, DOCX, PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF file types only.
Choose File

Question Title

* 1c. If your company has any sustainable sourcing policies for 'other' relevant materials, such as a separate bamboo sourcing policy, please state them here or attach them below.

Question Title

* Please attach any other 'other' polices

PDF, DOC, DOCX, PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF file types only.
Choose File

Question Title

* 1d. What aspects of your business do the above policies apply to? e.g. all consumer facing products / timber products but not paper and pulp products.

2. Sales or volumes

The following questions are concerned with collection information about the types of of timber products sold by your company and the quantity / value purchased or sold. Most useful to see would be retail sales values (£) for the last 12 month reporting period and, if possible, figures for the previous year.

Alternatively, volumes (tonnes), purchase values (£), percentages (%), or other measures would help to build an overall picture.

Question Title

* 2a. Please state which measure you are able to provide

Note: under FSC rules, products must be supplied by an FSC certified supplier and/or carry an FSC label to be considered ‘FSC certified’.

Guidance: The questions below have been split into ‘own brand products’ and ‘non-own brand’ products. We are aware that many companies may only have data for own brand products, but we wanted to give the option to report on both if possible or relevant. If you do not have data for non-own brand products, please put N/A.
Paper/Pulp

Question Title

* 2b. Own brand sales (or volumes) of Paper/Pulp

2018

Question Title

* 2c. Own brand sales (or volumes) of Paper/Pulp

2019

Question Title

* 2d. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of Paper/Pulp

2018

Question Title

* 2e. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of Paper/Pulp

2019

Wood

Question Title

* 2f. Own brand sales (or volumes) of Wood

2018

Question Title

* 2g. Own brand sales (or volumes) of Wood

2019

Question Title

* 2h. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of Wood

2018

Question Title

* 2i. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of Wood

2019

'Other'  (bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose)

Question Title

* 2j. Own brand sales (or volumes) of 'Other’ i.e. bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose.

2019

Question Title

* 2k. Own brand sales (or volumes) of 'Other’ i.e. bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose.

2019

Question Title

* Please specify what you have included as part of 'Other'.

Question Title

* 2l. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of 'Other’ i.e. bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose.

2018

Question Title

* 2m. Non-own brand sales (or volumes) of 'Other’ i.e. bamboo, cork, natural rubber, and viscose.

2019

Question Title

* Please specify what you have included as part of 'Other'.

3) FSC labelled or unlabelled?

The FSC understands that some products are FSC certified but are not labelled as such. We are interested to understand the extent to which this is the case.

Most useful to see would be retail sales values (£) for the last 12 month reporting period and, if possible, figures for the previous year.

Alternatively volumes (tonnes), purchase values (£), or percentages (%) would help to build an overall picture.

Question Title

* 3a. Please state which measure you are able to give

Question Title

* 3b. Sales (or volumes) of FSC certified product with label

2018

Question Title

* 3c. Sales (or volumes) of FSC certified product with label

2019

Question Title

* 3d. Sales (or volumes) of FSC certified product without label

2018

Question Title

* 3e. Sales (or volumes) of FSC certified product without label

2019

4) Packaging (own brand)

Question Title

* 4a. Does your company have a sustainability policy related to paper/card packaging ?

Question Title

* 4b. Please state your sustainable packaging policy here, or provide a website address where the policy can be found, and/or attach as a file below.

Question Title

* Please attach your sustainable packaging policy

PDF, DOC, DOCX, PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF file types only.
Choose File
We are interested in the types of paper / card packaging used by your company, i.e. what proportion is certified. Ideally figures would be stated as volumes or purchase values.

Question Title

* 4c. Please state which measure you are able to provide

Note: under FSC rules, products must be supplied by an FSC certified supplier and/or labelled as FSC to be considered ‘FSC certified’.

Question Title

* 4d. Volumes or purchase values (or other measure) of Packaging.

2018

Question Title

* 4e. Volumes or purchase values (or other measure) of Packaging.

2019

5 Comments on data collection

Question Title

* 5a. We intend to continue this research in future years and we want to work with businesses to ensure ease of data collection.

Do you have any comments or suggestions regarding how data could be collected in future, e.g. what data / metrics are you able to supply?

6. Additional comments

Question Title

* Please add any additional comments which you feel may be relevant

Thank you for filling out this questionnaire. This information is of great use and helps us work towards a sustainable timber sector.

T