Woolworths uses around 17 million pallets per year to transport goods across Australia. They are a major customer of CHEP Brambles, the country’s largest pallet supplier, which sources hardwood timber that is logged from native forests in Australia.

Although Victoria and Western Australia have transitioned out of native forest logging, it continues in NSW and Tasmania, including in High Conservation Value forests and a Global Biodiversity Hotspot. In NSW alone, native forest logging is destroying forests that provide habitat for 150 species that are at risk of extinction, including the greater glider and swift parrot.

Woolworths committed to achieving no-deforestation across key commodities, including Pulp, Paper and Timber, by 31 December 2025. To implement this, Woolworths’ Paper Pulp and Timber Policy requires Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) or Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certification (or 100% recycled). PEFC endorses national standards in 48 countries, including Australia’s Responsible Wood scheme. Yet PEFC-endorsed certifications have been “subject to intensive criticism by environmental NGOs in many countries” because “requirements and standards imposed by the PEFC are not as tight as those imposed by the FSC”. This track record has encouraged numerous high-profile companies to stop accepting PEFC-endorsed certifications.

PEFC has a demonstrable and consistent track record of certifying products coming from highly destructive logging operations—including where there is logging of high conservation value forests, old growth forests and illegal logging. For example, the PEFC-endorsed Responsible Wood scheme provides certification to the state-owned logging agency in NSW, Forestry Corporation, despite it having a “pattern of environmental offending,” as described in a judgement by Justice Rachel Pepper in 2024. This history includes, but is not limited to, illegally logging a national park, felling hollow-bearing trees, felling trees in rainforest exclusion zones, felling trees in areas subject to protections following the Black Summer Bushfires and failing to protect critical habitat.

Accepting PEFC will not ensure Woolworth’s timber sourcing is “deforestation-free”.