The Directors recognise the importance of environmental considerations. As a responsible organisation the James Latham Group seeks to follow, in all areas of its activities, policies which support this.

It is considered that with best practices observed, timber and wood products are the ultimate sustainable and recyclable materials, requiring low energy consumption to process and are thermally efficient in use.

James Latham was a founder signatory to the Timber Trades Federation's Responsible Purchasing Policy which is a systematic, third party audited process for risk assessing suppliers and seeking to eliminate illegal timber from the supply chain and promote sustainable forestry.

We actively seek from our suppliers evidence of commitment to continuous improvement in environmental performance, information on the source of wood products and evidence of good forest management practice.  James Latham will only source materials from suppliers who are operating within in the laws of their own country.

With the growing public awareness of the environment and environmental issues, and with many customers specifically requesting certified timber, we have made positive moves towards stocking products originating from sustainable and well managed forests.  We operate a preferred supplier policy which gives preference to timber certified as coming from well managed forests by one of the recognised and third party audited bodies such as FSC certified products. (FSC products have their forest of origin independently inspected and evaluated according to environmental, social and economic criteria agreed by the Forest Stewardship Council AC.)

FSC (the Forest Stewardship Council) is an international, non-profit making association whose membership includes environmental and social groups and progressive forestry and wood retail companies working in partnership to improve forest management world wide. All depots of the James Latham group have now been awarded FSC accredited certification by BM TRADA.

Material is also stocked that has been produced under the Programme for the Endorsement of Certification schemes (PEFC), the body that certifies National schemes that meet certain, internationally agreed criteria.  PEFC is the certifier of the largest area of forests world-wide and its endorsement covers schemes such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Canadian Standards Authority (CSA).

• To download our Environmental Certification Schemes and Timber Purchasing Brochure brochure, please click here .
• To view our Responsible Purchasing Policy, please click here .
• To view our Environmental Policy, please click here .