WWF's Global Annual Forest Report 97

Latin America / Caribbean
Asia / Pacific
Where to next?
Africa / Madagascar
North America
Europe / Middle East
Buyers' Groups
Buyers' Groups


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WWF has been at the forefront of an environmental movement to develop links with industry aimed at encouraging certified forest management around the world. This has led to the formation of Buyers' Groups - formal partnerships between environmental groups and industry, whose members are committed to purchasing forest products from well managed forests and to supporting independent certification and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Following the lead of existing Buyers' Groups in Austria, Belgium, Holland and the UK, three new Buyers' Groups have been formed this year in Germany, North America and Switzerland. The German Buyers' Group, Group '98, was launched in April by WWF-Germany and consists of ten German companies including OTTO Versand, the largest mail order company in the world. The Forest Product Buyers' Group in North America, launched in May, has four founding members, including Home Depot, the largest Do-It-Yourself retailer in the USA. The new Groups are important additions to the growing network of Buyers' Groups as these countries are big consumers of wood and wood products.

Existing Buyers' Groups have continued to expand this year. In January, the WWF 1995+ Group in the UK announced that two new members, Tarmac, one of the UK's best known construction companies, and Tetra Pak UK, a major Swedish-based packaging company, had joined the Group. In August, Habitat UK, one of the UK's leading home furnishing retailers, became the newest member of the Group taking the membership to over eighty.

Several other countries have been working towards establishing Buyers' Groups. In the last year, Les Trois Suisse, one of the largest mail order companies in France, has pledged to become one of the founder members of a French Buyers' Group and the Body Shop has signed its agreement to become a member of a WWF Buyers' Group in Australia. It is hoped that new Buyers' Groups will also be formed in Denmark, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Spain.

In the last year, the number of FSC-endorsed sites has grown considerably and over 3 million hectares of forest have now been certified. These certified sites range from royal forests to state forests and include forests owned by small community groups as well as those owned by large corporations. They also cover a range of forest types - tropical, temperate and boreal forests, in eighteen different countries.

This growing network of Buyers' Groups is set to have an increasing impact on certification and forest management in the next twelve months as more forests are certified to meet the demands of the Buyers' Groups. As a result, the number of FSC-labelled products available around the world will increase enormously.