Precious Woods > certification

Voluntary certification as a key to sustainability

Thanks to our sustainable, certified forest management, Precious Woods makes an important contribution to the conservation of tropical forests in South America and Africa and to halting their overexploitation. We are committed to sustainable forest management and therefore voluntarily seek dual certification every year according to the world's strictest standards of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In this way, we guarantee that the forests are managed according to strict environmental and social criteria. Sustainable forest management with all its social and environmental aspects is guaranteed by forest certification (Forest Management Certification, FM). To ensure that the processing and trading of the wood is also carried out in a sustainable and fair manner, we additionally have our entire product chain from the forest to the customer certified according to the strictest standards (Chain of Custody Certification, CoC).

As part of our trading activities, we also trade with wood from other producers, which must also all be certified according to either the FSC or PEFC standard.

Additional information on FSC » and PEFC » certification can be found on the websites of the two organisations.

Precious Woods, pioneer of forest certification

Precious Woods plays a pioneering role in Brazil and Gabon in the certification of tropical forests and the entire product chain:

1997: Precious Woods Amazon is the first company in the region to receive FSC certification.
2008: Precious Woods-CEB is the first company in Gabon to receive FSC certification. Precious Woods-TGI follows in 2009.
2017: Precious Woods Amazon is the first company in the region to receive PEFC certification.
2018: Precious Woods-CEB and TGI are the first companies in Gabon to receive PEFC certification.

100% of the forest areas and industrial operations managed by Precious Woods as well as its trading operations are therefore certified under the PEFC and FSC standards. After already playing a pioneering role early on, we are now the only company with dual certification. We are proud of our role as a pioneer in forest management, which is also our commitment for the future.

At any time, you can view the validity of our certificates and the annual certification reports in the databases of FSC » and PEFC ».

Independent assessment of sustainability and transparency

Thanks to our comprehensive PEFC and FSC certification, we already meet the highest standards for sustainability and transparency. Nevertheless, we welcome various initiatives which aim to examine and promote the sustainability and transparency of companies. These assessments, which also include non-certified and non-sustainable companies, allow us to once again underscore our pioneering position in the overall market environment.

We regularly place in the top ranks of the SPOTT » transparency assessment for the timber industry. But also in the annual ratings by the Carbon Disclosure Project », we demonstrate that we are among the industry leaders in sustainability.

EU Timber Regulation and US Lacey Act

The European Union and the United States have also recognised illegal logging as one of the major threats to our planet. The US Lacey Act and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) prevent the import of illegal timber products into these two important markets. These rules oblige forest companies to respect the legal requirements in the country of origin of the wood. Naturally, Precious Woods meets all these requirements and, with its voluntary certification, exceeds them by far.

We welcome these legally binding instruments, which also force non-certified actors to respect at least the legal minimum standards. Illegally operating forestry companies can, however, still circumvent these regulations by switching to other major markets. From our experience, we also know that legal compliance is not always sufficient to guarantee sustainable forestry and thus the conservation of forests. We therefore strictly adhere to our FSC and PEFC dual certification.