EPAGMA unveils new roadmap committing to peat certification and further steps on transparency

Following a presentation to representatives of peat and growing media companies, national growing media associations, the European Commission and Member State officials at the 6th Growing Media forum, the European Peat and Growing Media Association (EPAGMA) published the association’s first “Sustainability Agenda Roadmap” establishing a framework for EPAGMA’s actions on sustainability.

The EPAGMA Sustainability Agenda is the result of work carried out in the course of 2013 and builds on previous responsible use initiatives undertaken by the association, in particular the EPAGMA Code of Practice for Responsible Peatland Management and the two life cycle analysis projects on growing media constituents and energy peat.

The document sets out the priority areas identified by EPAGMA as important for future actions as well as a set of two first commitments that EPAGMA member companies will strive to achieve. EPAGMA’s Vice-Chairman, Tomi Yli-Kyyny informed attendees that “Although we can see efforts made over the last years, we believe that this framework can only be the start of more work to be undertaken by the industry. For us, the EPAGMA Sustainability Agenda is not complete, but a living document that we hope to develop over the coming years.” EPAGMA invited interested stakeholders to provide comments and feedback on the document to the EPAGMA Secretariat to julia.riss[at]bm.com. These comments will be considered in upcoming review processes.

The complete Sustainability Agenda Roadmap is available here