The FSC was set up in the early 1990s to tackle the ongoing problem of illegal harvesting of tropical hardwood. Due to its origins in regions where large areas of forests are owned by a single organisation, each organisation in the Chain of Custody must be assessed, which can be prohibitively expensive for small forest owners.

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) is an endorsement organisation that assesses individual countries standards, against a set of international standards. It allows smaller forest owners, typical of the European industry, to demonstrate the sustainability of their organisation without the expense of obtaining FSC certification.

For projects targeting BREEAM, the prerequisite is that all timber be sourced per the UK Timber Procurement Policy, which recognises both FSC and PEFC as acceptable. Generally, specifying certified timber should not add any expense, but may increase the lead times. However, it is Orms policy to always specify sustainably sourced timber, so our specifications will require sourcing in line with the UK Timber Procurement Policy.