STATEMENT OF COMPANY COMMITMENT

Ellis Island Limited has an obligation under the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) to ensure that all the timber products we place on the market have negligible risk of originating from sources where there is evidence of contravention of forest legislation. In order to have independent verification of this we have engaged with Soil Association Woodmark, as a Monitoring Organisation registered with the EU, to use their approved and regularly evaluated Due Diligence System (DDS). All products sold by Ellis Island Limited will have credible certification or other documentation to demonstrate compliance with the EUTR. Ellis Island Limited will analyse and evaluate each supply by obtaining information from the supplier including the species and district of origin and any applicable certification or legality documentation before making our furniture available on the European market.

Where the information supplied is insufficient to establish a negligible risk of illegality, further investigation will be undertaken in order to mitigate the risk. This will cover:
— assurance of compliance with applicable legislation, which may include certification or other third-party- verified schemes which cover compliance with applicable legislation,
— prevalence of illegal harvesting of specific tree species,
— prevalence of illegal harvesting or practices in the country of harvest and/or sub-national region where the timber was harvested, including consideration of the prevalence of armed conflict,
— sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council or the Council of the European Union on timber imports or exports,
— complexity of the supply chain of timber and timber products.

When assurance sufficient to mitigate the risk cannot be gained, the supplier will be rejected from our supply chain.
Ellis Island Limited is further committed to working towards sustainable sourcing for all forest products, recognising that legality is not in itself sufficient to ensure the best possible future for all forests. We support credible, third party, multi-stakeholder certification schemes which set standards covering a full range of social, environmental and economic criteria. We will therefore endeavour to increase our proportion of credible certified products and engage with our suppliers to move towards enabling this.
Ellis Island Limited maintains all records of timber purchases and sales for a minimum of five years. Information on species and district of origin will be passed on to all our trade customers so that they in turn can meet their EUTR obligation to maintain traceability.
Notwithstanding our best efforts, we recognise that no system can offer a hundred per cent guarantee of legality and the requirement of the EUTR is an absolute prohibition on trade in illegal timber. Bargaintown Ltd has a documented complaints procedure and all complaints regarding our DDS will be investigated and records of subsequent actions will be kept.

TP-DDS-002-01 Mar 2015 © Prepared by Soil Association Certification Ltd