New FSC Continuous Improvement Procedure empowers communities in bold approach to certification

Stepwise approach towards forest management certification for community and family forests launched through the FSC-PRO-30-011 Continuous Improvement Procedure.  This new procedure is now finalized and published on the FSC Document Centre. Eligible organizations can apply for FSC certification using this procedure after 17 August 2022.

The Continuous Improvement Procedure is an innovative approach towards certification by allowing users conform with only a subset of criteria and complete an action plan for the remaining management improvements. This simplifies their certification journeys to give an opportunity to continuously improve their sustainability objectives in forest management. Additionally, the release of this procedure includes an Action Plan and Conformity Self Check as annexes. These tools can be immediately used by organizations to develop an action plan to enhance their forest management practices.

With the Continuous Improvement Procedure now in place, FSC standards will be simplified to help community and family forests become certified; step-by-step. Through this procedure, FSC is also introducing more culturally adapted auditing and incorporating risk assessments. With this increased flexibility, users can more easily take advantage of this procedure to access benefits from certification while simultaneously reducing certification costs.

FSC would like to take this opportunity to thank the technical working group who have worked to put the procedure together. The new procedure can be downloaded in the Document Centre here. To learn more about the development process of the procedure, visit the process page here. Webinars about the procedure its implementation will be announcement shortly; stay tuned!