CPET activities

Over the last few months we have been busy giving our usual blend of technical assistance and guidance to the public sector through workshops, presentations and the CPET helpline. Requests for presentations and queries on the policy are coming in from around the country and we are pleased to see that so many people and organisations are starting to acknowledge the need and importance of sustainable timber procurement policies.

Last month CPET hosted the Technical Panel’s review of FSC and PEFC, which you can read more about here. On Defra’s initiative we also took this opportunity to invite our Dutch and German counterparts to meet with CPET’s Technical Panel in Oxford. We had a very fruitful workshop discussing the three countries’ policies, methods for assessing certification schemes and explored possibilities for future alignment of approaches. We will stay in close contact in the future and make sure we cooperate when possible,

In April, CPET presented at the East Midlands Sustainable Procurement Learning Network with the aim of promoting Sustainable Timber Procurement amongst Local Authorities in the East Midlands. In response to the presentation, we have had positive feedback indicating that policies will be updated and implemented in line with UK government policy and refer to CPET for guidance. 

In May we held several workshops with Buying Solutions to help them to incorporate the policy into their framework contracts. With approximately 46 Public Buying Organisations (PBOs) across the UK this workshop was of great importance in helping other such organisations. It provided us with a useful insight into how to incorporate such requirements into framework contracts that we will be able to apply to other such cases.  If you are a PBO and interested in working with CPET to incorporate such requirements into your procurement strategy, then please get in contact.

CPET recently hosted a stand at the Guardian Public Procurement Show at Excel, London. Run over 2 days from the 15^th – 16^th June, the show played host to a wide variety of buyers and suppliers and provided CPET with a great opportunity to promote Sustainable Timber Procurement policies in the public sector. The stand was well attended and we would like to thank all the people that dropped by for all their questions and comments about CPET and sustainable timber procurement. If you missed out, then you can find us at the LGA conference in Bournemouth from the 6^th – 8^th July.

CPET will also be running a training workshop on July 14^th in London. This may be the last workshop until September, so if you were thinking of attending, now is the time to sign up!! Further information about CPET workshops can be found here .