Participate in consultation on specific certification body requirements

Consultation on the revised specific certification body standards (FSC-STD-20-007 for forest management and FSC-STD-20-011 for chain of custody) is open from 21 October 2024 to 21 November 2024 for your input

The general certification body requirements are currently amended to ensure conformity with the ISO standard 17065 for bodies certifying products, processes and services. These amendments have resulted in alignment needs of the forest management and chain of custody specific requirements for certification bodies. As a result, FSC has developed amended draft standards for FSC-STD-20-007 and FSC-STD-20-011 currently for consultation.

The revision is needed to align with the Regulation (EC) 765/2008 on Requirements for Accreditation and Market Surveillance at the European Economic Area (EEA) and at the United Kingdom (UK) level and FSC needs to adapt its requirements in order to operate within EEA and UK.

Key changes

The following is an overview of the key changes:

Chain of custody certification body requirements

• New Annex 2: List of documentation and records in chain of custody (CoC) audit processes
• New Annex 3: List of locations and sites for evaluation in CoC audits
• New Annex 4: Determination of audit time  
• In addition to the changes above the introduction sections including the definitions were amended and some changes to the structure of the requirements were made.

Forest management certification body requirements

• Forest management specific parts were moved from FSC-STD-20-001 General Requirements for FSC Accredited Certification Bodies to FSC-STD-20-007
• Amended Annex 2: List of documentation and records in forest management
• Amended Annex 3: List of locations and sites for forest management evaluations
• New Annex 6: Determination of audit time  
• New Annex 7: Specific requirements for controlled forest management were included in FSC-STD-20-007, thereby replacing the separate FSC-STD-20-012 standard.
• In addition to the changes above the introduction sections including the definitions were amended and some changes to the structure of the requirements were made.

Webinars

FSC will be conducting webinars to present the draft documents and to discuss the key changes. The webinars will cover the proposed changes to the general certification body standards as well as the proposed changes to the specific forest management and chain of custody requirements.  Please register below for the webinars.

Consultation webinar on FSC accreditation standards revision (session repeated):

• Thursday, 07 November 2024 at 9:00 – 10:30 CET in English only.  Register here.
• Thursday, 07 November 2024 at 16:00 – 17:30 CET in English only.  Register here.

Participate today

To access the consultation, please visit the Consultation Platform. The consultation is open until 21 November 2024. We are looking forward to your participation!

• Consultation for FSC's specific requirements for certification bodies - forest management in English & Spanish and French. 
• Consultation for FSC's specific requirements for certification bodies - chain of custody in English/Spanish and French.