A brand refresh is among the tasks of a new communications drive for Indonesia’s SVLK timber legality assurance system. The initiative, backed by the UK-funded Multi-stakeholder Forestry Programme (MFP4), aims to raise awareness of the value of SVLK certification at home and abroad.
Phase 1 of the project, to February 2021, will see development of an SVLK communications plan for 2021-2023. This will include the creation of two ‘cohesive message houses’, one each for domestic and international audiences. Respective roles of stakeholders in delivering communications will also be defined. Other activities include developing communications materials to raise the profile of Indonesia abroad as a source of low-risk timber and to promote SVLK on the domestic market. The objective is also to create a ‘knowledge management platform’ as a central point of information for SVLK. This opening phase will additionally address SVLK branding.
“The [SVLK] standard is currently described in different ways at different steps of the timber value chain: SVLK as a timber legality assurance system from harvesting through processing of wood products, V-Legal certification at the point of export out of Indonesia, and FLEGT-licensed timber upon arrival in the EU market,” states the call for applications to manage the project . “This branding needs to be clarified and harmonised.”
Phase 2 of the programme will focus on supporting Indonesian timber businesses and associations in their marketing and promotion. The objective is to ‘convey messages and content about the [SVLK] standard’s ability to reduce reputational and environmental risk for international buyers of tropical timber’. In support of this, buyers’ procurement criteria will be analysed and promotional campaigns supported at trade fairs.
The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) will also be backed in delivering a domestic SVLK policy promotion programme targeting regulators and encouraging increased Indonesian media coverage of the system.
The project is effectively the execution of a communications strategy developed for SVLK and FLEGT-licensed timber under the MFP4 programme, in cooperation with MoEF, the Global Timber Forum and ID COMM. With the aim of increasing understanding and buy-in for SVLK among an Indonesian audience and building recognition and demand for FLEGT-licensed timber in export markets, this entailed extensive stakeholder interviews and needs assessment.
Tenders are being invited from communications and public relations experts to take on the role of managing and developing the communications project, with a deadline for expressions of interest of September 23. Full details can be found on the website of Palladium, which implements the MFP4 with fellow international sustainability programme coordinators Systemiq.