Draft advice note helps publishers
FSC has just sent out a new draft advice note regarding the use of chain of custody certified contractors. This draft policy promises to help solving a current bottleneck in the CoC system.
In many cases, larger publishers are buying the paper for their publications, and then contracting a printer to do the actual printing. According to current rules, the publisher needs to hold an FSC chain of custody certificate in order to sell the publications with the FSC label.
The draft advice note proposes a new approach: the printer is allowed to label the publications as FSC certified and the non-certified publisher is allowed to promote them as certified – provided that the certified paper is delivered directly from a certified supplier to a certified printer.
While the advice note addresses a well-known bottleneck among publishers, the exception can be used for other types of products with a similar setup, as long as the certified contractor is producing final labelled and packaged products, and as long as the raw material is delivered directly to the certified contractor.
