Revised Advice Notes on evaluation of contractors against FSC core labour requirements published

On 1 August 2024, FSC published the new versions of the advice notes FSC-ADVICE-40-004-23 V2-0 Evaluation of Contractors against the FSC Core Labour Requirements and FSC-ADVICE-20-011-16 V2-0 Evaluation of Contractors against the FSC Core Labour Requirements. These are available as separate documents while we make changes to the Directive documents. We will further communicate to stakeholders when these new versions, including the translated versions in French and Spanish are uploaded.  

Background 

FSC introduced FSC-ADVICE-40-004-23 V1-0 Evaluation of Contractors against the FSC Core Labour Requirements to provide instructions on how the FSC core labour requirements have to be applied to contractors operating under outsourcing agreements. To complement this Advice Note FSC has also published FSC-ADVICE-20-011-16 V1-0 Evaluation of Contractors against FSC Core Labour Requirements to provide clear instructions to certification bodies on how contractors operating under outsourcing agreements with Chain of Custody certificate holders have to be assessed against the FSC core labour requirements. From the previous version of these advice notes, FSC received multiple stakeholder concerns requesting more clarity and time for implementation, with specific concerns related to the use of the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) Global Rights Index in the risk assessment to evaluate outsourcing agreements. 

Considering these concerns, FSC chose to revise these requirements, while still aiming to maintain the original objective of the advice notes, to provide clear instructions on how the FSC core labour requirements are applied to contractors operating under outsourcing agreements.  

To allow time for this revision, FSC provided a derogation, which is in place until the effective dates of the new versions. The derogation maintained the requirements for policy statement and self-assessment for contractors.  

Process 

The process applied to the revision of these advice notes followed the accelerated process under FSC-PRO-01-001, and included a stakeholder consultation between 1 March and 21 March 2024. The consultation received responses from multiple stakeholder groups and representation from most regions and all FSC Member chambers (economic, environmental and social).  

The consultation results were mixed, with the main concerns from stakeholders including the concern around the lack of sampling for low risk, more detail required for the indices provided in the annexes and request for general clarity improvements to the terms and definitions and the wording used in the advice note clauses.  

Following this consultation, FSC further consulted with some certification bodies, to better understand concerns and work on a suitable way forward for these advice notes. Their feedback was collected and the resulting changes reflected in the advice note contents and the timelines provided.  

Changes 

We have split between the requirements across the two advice notes, whereas previously the same advice note content was provided in the both directives (FSC-DIR-40-004 and FSC-DIR-20-011). This is to clearly separate requirements aimed at organizations (certificate holders and applicants) and those aimed at certification bodies (CB).  

We have enhanced the terms and definition section, to provide more clarity.  

We have amended the structure of the requirements, particularly for the CB’s risk evaluation, to make it more understandable.   

We have added sampling for ‘low risk’ for a more risk-based approach - previously, this had only been provided for ‘high-risk’ outsourcing agreements.  

We have added more flexibility for certification bodies, by providing the Annex with indices which can be referenced if, based on the provided information, the certification body considers the stakeholder to be low risk.  

Effective and Transition End Dates 

The derogation remains in place until the effective date of these new versions, with the plan to remove the previous version to avoid any confusion on what requirements are to be followed from 1 November 2024 onwards.   

These advice notes are effective from 1 November 2024, with transition end dates of 31 December 2025.  

Any Questions? 

If you have any questions or concerns about these revised advice notes, please contact: chainofcustody@fsc.org.  

Additionally, if you would consider an informative webinar session on this topic useful, please send an email request to chainofcustody@fsc.org and include the subject line ‘Request for Webinar’. Dependent on number of requests received, FSC will consider arranging this in the next couple of months.