Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
Howarth Timber Building & Supplies have joined a new ethical partnership scheme, which encourages greater social responsibility within the hard landscaping market.
Launched by hard landscaping supplier Stonemarket, the scheme is “an alliance of retailers, trade unions and NGO’s working collectively to tackle the questions posed by ethical trade.”
As part of this, Howarth Timber, which operates 25 branches in the UK, have committed to selling only ethically-sourced natural stone paving in all of their outlets.
Howarth Timber group product manager Alan Smith said, “We are delighted to become a Stonemarket Ethical partner, as this contributes towards our commitment to offering environmentally-friendly and sustainable products.”
Being a partner also assures that children are not used in the production process to bring the stone products to market.
Alan Smith continued, “In a market in which the vast majority of stone sets bought in the open market are made by children, there’s no point in us being a ‘little bit ethical’.
By buying our Stonemarket products you can be totally confident that the product is ethically sourced and that no child labour has been used in the production of the stone.”
