Our Quality and Environmental Standards, Certification and Accreditations

Forest Research (FR) is an executive agency of the Forestry Commission, a leader in applied forest science, nationally and internationally. Our research supports the timber economy, climate change mitigation, biodiversity and understanding of people’s relationships to woods and forests. We are in the front line of the battle to protect the country’s trees from invasive pests and diseases.   

Our Quality Policy and Processes

Forest Research is committed to meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations including those defined by relevant standards, as well as statutory and regulatory requirements. We are dedicated to continual improvement of our Quality Management System to measure and improve our performance. Our Quality principles are outlined in our Quality Policy.

Download the Forest Research Quality Policy (PDF, 104kb)

Four of our Tree Health Diagnostic activities are UKAS accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 as outlined in our schedule. Our certificate for ISO17025 accreditation can be found on the UKAS website.

FR has been an Officially Recognised Efficacy Testing Organisation/Facility (ORETO) for Plant Protection Products since 1998. We are regularly inspected by the Chemical Regulation Directorate to verify compliance and formally audit our Quality System.

View our certification online.

For further information in relation to Quality, please contact quality@forestresearch.gov.uk

Our Environmental Policy and Processes

Forest Research is committed to protecting the environment, preventing pollution, fulfilling our compliance obligations and continually improving our Environmental Management System.

Our principles of actions are outlined within our Environmental Policy.

View our Environmental Policy.

In order to demonstrate our commitments, we:

• comply with all relevant environmental legislation and other obligations.
• continually seek to reduce our consumption of water, energy and fuel whilst increasing the proportion derived from renewable and alternative sources.
• continually seek to reduce the amount of waste we produce and increase the proportion recycled.
• publish a Sustainability Report as part of our Annual Report.

Our built estate has a formal Environmental Management System (EMS) which is certified to ISO 14001: 2015 standard.

View our LRQA certificate and schedule.

Our operational activities are managed in accordance with the UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) and the UK Woodland Assurance Standard (UKWAS), to which we are certified by both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

For further information in relation to Environmental management, please contact environment@forestresearch.gov.uk.

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