WPA appoints BM Certification to provide quality assurance audits for wood treatment processes
The Wood Protection Association (WPA) has appointed BM Certification to expand provision of its WPA Benchmark quality scheme for treated wood in the EU region. The move follows significant interest in the third-party accreditation of wood treating plant to comply with changing supply chain requirements in the UK.
Members of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) predominate in the UK timber supply chain. In 2019 they approved an ‘Action Plan’ to grow demand for preservative treated wood. This plan has three parts. Parts 1 and 2 are focused on communications campaigns to raise buyer and supply chain knowledge about how treated wood should be specified and marketed correctly for its end use. Part 3 of the Plan made third-party quality assurance of treatment processes mandatory by July 2022. This requirement is now concentrating the minds of TTF members who produce or sell treated wood. “The TTF Action Plan has generated a lot of interest in the WPA Benchmark for treated wood scheme – particularly from treaters in the EU region who export into UK.” says WPA director, Gordon Ewbank who confirms that expansion of the Associations capabilities to provide Benchmark QA audit services to meet the needs of wood treaters has been a major priority saying: “BM Certification has an audit capability second to none and are the perfect partner to help us deliver the benefits and value of the WPA Benchmark to wood treaters in mainland Europe”.
About the WPA Benchmark Quality Scheme
The WPA Benchmark scheme was launched in 2011 to provide wood treaters with a credible and independent quality scheme for treatment processes and products. Whilst the British Standard for industrial wood preservation, BS 8417, recommends the levels of preservative penetration and retention it does not provide guidance on how these critical minimum requirements are to be achieved; instead, it refers readers to the WPA Code of Practice: Industrial Wood Preservation on how the performance benchmark for any application, indoors or out, can be achieved. As such, the WPA Benchmark scheme operates on the principle that wood consistently treated in accordance with the WPA Code of Practice is a durable material and will exhibit the minimum penetration and retention requirements for the relevant end use.
Please contact BM Certification for more information.
