Cowells Garden Centre

At Cowell's like everyone else, we can see that the climate around us changing, and we believe that companies like ourselves have a role to play in helping to reduce climate change and minimise the ways our business can affect the environment.

Some of the changes we want to make are simple, we recycle what we can, we have cut down on waste and we try to buy what we don't produce ourselves ethically.

• Cowell's want to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
• Cowell's want to trade fairly and ethically
• Cowell's want to ensure no one is exploited in producing the products we buy and sell
• Cowell's want to keep our environmental policies up to date and will review them anually
• Cowell's want to play a role in developing our local community
• Cowell's want to be a good and fair employer
• Cowell's want to trade locally and nationally where possible and help other local businesses to thrive

The Forest Stewardship Council is an international network to promote responsible management of the world’s forests.
FSC brings people together to find solutions to the problems created by bad forestry practices and to reward good forest management.
Environmentally appropriate forest management ensures that the harvest of timber protects the forest’s biodiversity and ecology.
Socially beneficial forest management helps both local people and society at large to enjoy long-term benefits and also provide strong incentives to local people to manage the forest resources.
Economically viable forest management means that forest operations are structured and managed so as to be sufficiently profitable, without generating financial profit at the expense of the forest resources, the ecosystem or affected communities.

10 Facts about FSC

1. You can buy wood products with a clear conscience when you see the FSC logo. FSC forests are managed with consideration for people, wildlife and the environment.
2. The FSC label guarantees that the trees that are harvested are replaced or allowed to regenerate naturally.
3. Parts of the forest are protected entirely, in order to protect rare animals and plants.
4. FSC protects the rights of indigenous people to use the forest. If they have sacred sites in the forest these are exempt from felling.
5. The forest owner must use local workers to run the forest, and provide training, safety equipment and a decent salary.
The forest owner is often obliged to support the community in other ways, such as through the development of schools.
6. FSC is a market-based initiative, which also ensures better conditions for the forest and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.
7. FSC gives an assurance that future generations will be able to enjoy the benefits of the forest.
8. All the wood is tracked from the forest to the store. Every link between the forest and the consumer is certified to make it clearly identifiable, which wood is FSC certified and which is not.
9. FSC is the only wood certification scheme endorsed by the major environmental charities, including WWF, Greenpeace and The Woodland Trust.
10. The FSC label is not only available on wood for furniture. It can also be found on floors, decking, paper, printed matter, charcoal, kitchen utensils, latex, even venison.

Our goal is to source all of the timber products that we sell from manufacturers who
use Forestry Stewardship Council certified timber (FSC) by 2011.