The Environment

About The Environment

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The Harlow Group believes that an environmental consciousness and a responsibility to sustainability is an essential part of our timber operations.

Our core product is wood and that resource is the most environmentally friendly building material if sourced from forests & sawmills that ensure their materials are sustainable and are harvested responsibly.

Timber can reduce our collective reliance on fossil fuels and the carbon emissions that go with them, and as a naturally growing product timber is actually storing carbon whilst having a low embodied energy. Embodied energy is the amount of energy used in order to create the finished product for market and because timber grows into a finished product the processes that go into then creating a material fit for purpose are small in comparison to other materials.

It can be a misconception outside of our industry that the use of timber as a building material is in some way reducing the amount of trees that are out there on the land to help absorb carbon deposits however nothing could be further from the truth. The forests that are used for sustainable and responsible timber crops are replanted as soon as they are harvested, and in turn the industry encourages the additional growth of trees for supply so in truth the merchanting of timber actively encourages the increase in volumes of trees and in turn the timber available to the market in a sustainable way.

At Harlow we strongly believe in these values and we only bring timber to the market for sale that has been harvested in a legal, sustainable and responsible manner. 

Our timber is accredited by two bodies (dependent on its purpose and the requirements of our clients) to ensure our timber is sustainable & responsibly grown & harvested:

Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)

The PEFC is a leading global alliance of national forest certification systems. As an international non-profit, non-governmental organization the PEFC are dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management through independent third-party certification.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®)

The FSC runs a global forest certification system with the key components of forest management & chain of custody.

The chain of custody ensures that timber harvested and offered for sale can be traced back though the merchants, importers, sawmills to the forest it was harvested from, and it's measures like these that ensure that the timber we sell at Harlow is sustainable and responsibly grown.

With the environmental benefits to using timber for your project allied with sustainable and responsible practices we'd hope you'd agree with us that wood is a fantastic environmentally conscious choice of material whatever your job requirements.

At Harlow our commitment to responsibility for the environment goes beyond our timber sourcing and and supply. We also have a commitment to  ISO 14001 &  ISO 50001.

ISO 14001 is an environmental management system that works toward improving our planet by  reducing waste, costs, and risks, and by committing to this standard Harlow demonstrates its dedication to minimizing the organisations impact on the environment.

ISO 50001 is an internationally recognised standard for Energy Management Systems (EnMS). It gives our business a robust and effective framework for improving energy efficiency over the long-term. This standard specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an energy management system, whose purpose is to enable an organization to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance, including energy efficiency, energy security & use.

At Harlow we have significantly invested in green energy sources by installing renewable energy systems at many of our locations. You might not be able to see them when you visit us but we have solar power generation systems at a selection of our sites that further aid us to commit to the future of our planet.

The Harlow Timber Group is dedicated to continuing to make it's contribution to the environment, our planet and the future, and we very much hope that you will join with us in using sustainable products for your project whilst continuing to help us commit to a greener & brighter future for the generations to come.