Launch of transaction verification loop in Vietnam

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Assurance Services International (ASI) are launching a transaction verification (TV) loop on supply chains of all types of wood in Vietnam. The TV loop will include forest management (FM) certificate holders in the scope, in addition to specific types of chain of custody (COC) certificate holders. 

The first phase of this TV loop – data collection and analysis – will be conducted from May to November 2023. Data from 56 FM and 368 COC certificate holders will be collected, covering an area of over 241,600 hectares of forest in Vietnam. Transactions between January to December 2022 will be examined in this TV loop. In addition to identifying potential false claims, FSC and ASI will map/trace the resource distribution of FSC-certified material in Vietnam with this TV loop. 

ASI will collect transaction data from all FM and COC certificate holders belonging to wood pellet supply chains including other wood-based product supply chains like furniture, construction materials and household articles. Typically, the waste wood from other wood-based product supply chains is procured for wood pellet production. Thus, the TV loop will examine and investigate transactions beginning in the forest and leading up to the wood pellets processors. Certificate holders who import their raw material will also be a part of this TV loop.  

The COC certificate holders included in this TV loop have rough wood, sawdust, wood shavings and solid wood (sawn, chipped and peeled) in their certification scope. These products are usually used as raw materials for wood pellet production.  

FSC and ASI decided to launch this TV loop – the second one focused on Vietnam – after detecting problems related to volume mismatch between the amount of wood sold by FM certificate holders and the amount used by COC certificate holders to produce wood pellets, in Vietnam. These problems were revealed during the Asia wood pellets TV loop that was conducted between 2020 and 2022. This poses a high risk to the integrity of FSC’s certification system in Vietnam.  

In addition to launching this TV loop to address the integrity risks, FSC also blocked two Vietnamese companies for making false claims as a result of the Asia wood pellets TV loop. 

For more information about the final results of the Asia wood pellets TV loop, click here. 

For more information about the companies blocked as an outcome of the Asia wood pellets TV loop click here.