Control Union admitted as certification body for the Keurhout-CoC

July 15th 2009

The Keurhout Management Authority (KH-MA) has decided to honour a request of  certification body (CB) “Control Union Certifications” (earlier SKAL) to be admitted to the pool of KH-registered CB’s. The admission is effective from July 15th 2009 and concerns the implementation of intake and annual surveillance audits concerning the CoC in consumer countries. CU is the third admitted CB, next to SGS and SKH. These certification bodies are accredited for the implementation of CoC audits on the basis of the ISO/IEC 65 Guidelines.

In view of the expected further increase of the number of Keurhout-participants the KH-MA strives to offer them and increased choice of CB’s. This stimulates better market conditions and enables the combination of KH-audits with audits for e.g. other CoC systems by one and the same CB, which may lead to considerable cost reductions.  

New president BoE Keurhout

July 1st 2009

Recently, after more than 13 years in that position,  Prof. C. J. Jepma left as President of the Board of Experts (BoE) of Keurhout. The reason is that he could not combine this function with his new position as President of the Energy Delta Institute, a cooperation between the GasUnie and the Rijks Universiteit Groningen (RUG).
In his farewell speech Prof. Jepma indicated to be impressed by the quality of work delivered by the BoE. He stressed that the BoE has contributed positively to the development of the Keurhout system, which counts those days with a complete Protocol with standards for the validation of certificates and systems for Legal Origin and Sustainable Forest Management. The significant increase in KH-admitted area and number of KH-admitted CoC companies for both the KH-Sustainable and KH-Legal system and the increasing number of Keurhout participants over time (actually almost 200 companies) show that Keurhout has a role to play. Prof. Jepma considers that the critical assessment by the BoE has contributed to better forest management and that the use of a phased approach has been important for the acceptance of sustainable and legal origin timber by the timber sector He thanked the BoE for the very pleasant and professional cooperation and wished them good luck with any future challenges.

The Keurhout Management Authority has appointed Dr. H. de Iongh as the new President of the BoE. Dr de Iongh joined the BoE as member in 1998. Dr de Iongh is employed at the Centre for Environmental Studies (CML) of the University of Leiden. He also serves as Regional Councillor for Western Europe in the IUCN Council, the highest organ of IUCN (the International Union for the Concervation of Nature). 

Keurhout integrally accepts FSC and PEFC systems as sustainable

May 6th 2009

With support of the General Assemblee held on April 1st 2009, the board of directors of the NTTA has decided to adjust the Keurhout system by establishing a provision which arranges the integral admission of certificates issued under FSC or PEFC International to the Keurhout-Sustainable sytem. Objections against this decision can be filed within 1 month at the Keurhout Management Authority.