Chain of custody in design and construction

2012-09-26T13:16:36Z

Limpet: Created page with "Over recent years there has been much discussion regarding The Chain of Custody for sustainable timber and lumbers and how this chain of custody can both work and be achieved f..."

Over recent years there has been much discussion regarding The Chain of Custody for sustainable timber and lumbers and how this chain of custody can both work and be achieved for Clients and Employers whom seek a sustainable building using timbers from a sustainable source.

To assist other professionals in seeking guidance on this subject, I have set out below a few pointers which will hopefully give some direction to attaining Chain of Custody status.

The original format for "The Chain of Custody" was developed I believe by The World Wildlife Fund, whom embarked on bringing to the Industry an awareness of the depletion of our natural resources within the worlds rain forests, especially hard wood timbers and over recent times some soft woods as well. Therefore to show a Client that as a Builder you can identify and manage through a document trail exactly where your lumber was coming from, a system needed to be invented to track and prove through documentary evidence that timbers were being supplied from suitable resources and regions of the world. This also included timer merchants and shippers whom are the " middle men" when dealing with purchasing timber.

My first experience of the Chain of Custody was with Horsham District Council whom as our Client required us to supply all timber in the construction of their new building with a chain of Custody certification trail from its source in the forest directly, via a saw mill, merchant, contractor to its final installation within the building.This meant a large amount of investigation work into the subject as no other building in the country at that time had undertaken this venture so it was to a very steep learning curve for all involved.

My first approach was to the WWF, whom were able to provide me with valuable information on Chain of Custody companies to approach that held the necessary certification to allow the movement of products produced from well managed forests. Contact [mailto:info@fsc-uk.org info@fsc-uk.org]

After contacting those companies, it soon became apparent that the "Chain" needed to be passed from the source to the end Client without any breaks in that chain. So we were presented with a situation that the forest had certification, the merchant had certification, but for us as the Contractor we did not have the necessary certification to allow the materials to pass on to the client without breaking that chain.

Through assistance from the WWF, I was able to make contact with PEFC ( Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification ) [mailto:info@pefc.org info@pefc.org] , whom were able to assist with achieving certification for the Chain of Custody. They are not the only company able to provide a management service for accreditation, but based on cost and experience they were able to offer the service we required. If your company already has ISO 14001, then the management processes are already in place for the control of the documentation necessary to manage the Chain of Custody. It is then a case of changing those management procedures and documents under ISO14001 within your company organisation to suit the tracking and logging of those timber materials being used for a particular site.

For your information I used this Chain of Custody to supply, Glulam beams, plywood sheets, hard wood door linings, internal doors, skirtings, architraves, even coat hook backing boards all from sustainable sources with the FSC logo and endorsement.

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User:Limpet

2012-09-26T13:11:17Z

Limpet: Created page with "My name is Simon Hilling. I am a Member of The Chartered Institute of Building and have been so since 1996. I have some 30 years experience working within the Construction Indu..."

My name is Simon Hilling. I am a Member of The Chartered Institute of Building and have been so since 1996.

I have some 30 years experience working within the Construction Industry working on many differing projects, from Hospitals to schools Houses to swimming pools.

Since May 2011, I have been a Director of Ground Up Construction Limited who specialise in Ground Works and Civil engineering.

You can contact me on 07703 611188 use e-mail [mailto:enquirys@groundupconstruction.co.uk enquirys@groundupconstruction.co.uk] or visit my website using [http://www.groundupconstruction.co.uk www.groundupconstruction.co.uk]

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Chain of custody in design and construction

User:Limpet