CB performance side event
“Regaining Credibility and Rebuilding Support” is the title of a joint statement released today by a powerful group of 6 key organisations within the FSC System: FERN, Greenpeace, Inter-African Forest Industry, Precious Woods, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and Tropical Forest Trust.
The statement was presented by FERN at a side event of the FSC general Assembly.
The statement constitutes a serious warning to the FSC and demands several specific actions for improving the credibility of the FSC certification system. According to the organisations, “continued active support to the FSC will depend on it advancing these recommendations and demonstrating improved performance”. The proposal is partly built on recommendations from Greenpeace, published in the report “Holding the Line with FSC”, which was also launched at the side event.
The organisations recommended a number of specific actions to increase the performance of FSC-accredited certification organisations.
Proposed key actions
Although the paper does not recommend severing the direct economic link between certification bodies and certified operations, it suggests empowering the FSC accreditation organisation ASI to carry out direct auditing of certified operations as part of its control functions, and to suspend operations immediately if deemed necessary.
It is also proposed to adopt a requirement to publish public summaries of certification reports prior to issuing certificates. Furthermore, the organisations call for increased transparency on the performance of accredited certification bodies; proposals include rating of certifiers according to performance and publishing of accreditation reports done by ASI. It is also proposed that ASI carry out its audits of certification bodies more frequently if the number of CARs issued to the certifier is higher.
Consensus on steps to increase certifier performance
The discussion following the presentation showed that most of the recommendations were broadly supported by those attending the meeting, including from most of the certification organisations. Based on the level of support shown at this side event, it looks like several important motions for improving the credibility of FSC will be approved at the FSC General Assembly.
