Audit Quality and Integrity Investigation in Türkiye

FSC has commissioned Assurance Services International (ASI) to carry out an independent investigation into audit quality and integrity in Türkiye. The goal is to better understand how well FSC audits are addressing integrity risks. This investigation is a part of a broader FSC initiative to strengthen and improve the overall quality of auditing in the FSC system. 

FSC invites all stakeholders to share audit quality and integrity concerns related to Türkiye to ASI through the incident submission platform here, before 31 August 2025. 

For this investigation, ASI will request all current certification bodies, auditors and certificate holders in Türkiye to submit information relevant for this investigation. ASI will look into stakeholder concerns about certification/accreditation fraud, violation of workers’ rights, unethical behaviour of certification bodies, and risks associated with transfer of certificates. ASI will also consider analytical papers, such as corruption related risk assessments, and recent media coverage about wood fraud.  

ASI will begin by reviewing available information from 2023 to 2025 but may extend the scope if needed to include earlier data, depending on findings. The main areas of focus of this investigation are:  

• Identification of the major integrity risks in Türkiye, and how FSC, ASI and certification bodies operating in Türkiye are addressing them. 
• The major labour rights issues in Türkiye, and to what extent FSC’s core labour requirements in the chain of custody standard and workers’ rights protection requirements in the forest management standard help mitigate these issues in certified operations.  

FSC is aware of the various risks associated with Türkiye, and taking measures to address these risks through the national risk assessment of Türkiye, which is currently under revision, and scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025.  

In 2024, FSC launched the Eurasia Integrity Workplan to address the potential risk of Russian timber entering FSC-certified supply chains and improve the audit quality and integrity risks in the region, especially in China. This investigation into audit quality and integrity risks in Türkiye shares similar objectives. The findings of this investigation and the Eurasia Integrity Workplan will contribute towards FSC’s efforts to protect and strengthen the integrity of certified supply chains.