Preliminary findings of the Pterocarpus investigation

The preliminary findings of the transaction verification (TV) loop on African Pterocarpus indicate that the majority of FSC-certified Pterocarpus is harvested from Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and Zambia. Europe has emerged as the primary market where the timber is used as outdoor furniture, gardening products, and for construction.

In the first phase of this TV loop, Assurance Services International (ASI) collected transaction data from 807 Chain of Custody Certificate Holders across 53 countries who trade in FSC-certified Pterocarpus.

FSC and ASI launched this TV loop in October 2024 to assess the current scale and volume of trade in FSC-certified Pterocarpus, review CITES certificates held by certificate holders within this TV loop’s scope, and detect false claims within the FSC supply chains.

Main findings

The transaction data analysis highlighted the following integrity risks in FSC-certified Pterocarpus supply chains:

1. In several cases, the volume of timber reportedly sold by some certificate holders does not correspond with the volume that their trading partner reportedly purchased. In certain instances, suppliers declared zero sales of FSC-certified material, while their customers reported that they purchased certified timber from them.
2. Transaction records of some certificate holders revealed the purchase and sale of materials with FSC claims that fall outside the scope of their certification.
3. In a small number of cases, the original certified forest from which the timber was harvested could not be verified. In one case the timber’s origin could not be traced back to the certified forest because certain companies in the supply chain lost their FSC certification and were not included in the scope of this TV loop.
4. Irregularities were detected in the transaction data of some Forest Management Certificate Holders. They sold Pterocarpus with FSC claims even though they did not have this species in their certification scope. There are also instances where Chain of Custody Certificate Holders purchased allegedly certified timber from non-certified companies.

Several of these risks appear to be concentrated among large European traders with subsidiaries operating in Africa. Furthermore, there is limited transparency regarding where semi-finished products were converted into finished goods within the supply chain, particularly among European brokers/traders with physical possession of the traded material.

Next steps

In the second phase of this TV loop, ASI has mapped thirteen high-risk supply chain clusters for further investigation based on the above-mentioned preliminary findings. As part of these investigations, ASI will collect further information from certification bodies and certificate holders to verify the identified risks, understand the underlying causes, and implement appropriate corrective measures. The scope has also been extended to include additional suppliers/customers due to the nature of the integrity risks.

Acknowledging the potential integrity risk that stems from cases when some certificate holders declare ‘no FSC sales’, an Advice Note on Public Disclosure of ‘no FSC sales’ was put into effect from 1 January 2026. FSC has introduced a new feature in the FSC Public Search to enable viewers to see the names of the certificate holders who declare ‘no FSC sales’ in their previous audit. FSC certified companies are invited to use this information for due diligence and compliance processes as well as for communication with their trading partners.