What is an operator?

Operators are those that first place timber or timber products on the EU market. They are required to exercise due diligence (a framework of measures and procedures) when placing the products on the market, to determine that they are not illegally harvested. Due diligence must be completed prior to purchase. The requirements are to:

• Collect and allow access to specific information, covering: product description – country/region/area of harvest, species common (scientific) name, quantity, supplier, customer(s), and supporting documents and information

• Undertake a risk assessment – this is where information gained through supporting credible documents etc plays an extremely important part, coupled with any necessary checks

• Undertake additional risk mitigation procedures as appropriate – for example, from higher risk sources or where the supply chain is complex

While certified products with an unbroken chain of custody (eg PEFC and FSC) take you some way to establishing negligible risk of illegally-sourced timber, these and other similar schemes are not currently a green light to meeting the regulation.  This is because two important areas are not covered sufficiently by these schemes, namely ‘country of harvest’ and ‘tree species’. PRFC and FSC are looking to address these problems at the moment.

ekonglong furniture

What is a trader?
A ‘trader’ is a company further down the supply chain that has not first placed timber or timber products onto the EU market. The trader, for example, could be a furniture manufacturer that sources timber from a wholesaler in the EU, which itself buys the product from outside of the EU. In this example, the wholesaler is an ‘operator’. The obligations of the trader are:

• Upstream traceability – to record the name and address of the operators or the traders who have supplied the timber or timber products to you, and

• Downstream traceability – to record the name and address of the business to which you have supplied the product. Note that the downstream traceability requirement only applies business-to-business, not if you sell direct to the final consumer

• To keep this information for at least five years, and provide it to competent authorities if they so request. Therefore, companies would be best advised to introduce a record system by type that allows the easy identification of purchases and sales of timber/timber-based products. The records should cover at least a period of five years as far as retention is concerned.