Social issues move into the FSC Chain of Custody standard

New key requirements

The most important change compared to the previous standard is the incorporation of new requirements pertaining to the company’s approach to social issues and involvement with unacceptable forest related activities. 

The standard requires certificate holders to demonstrate their commitment to comply with the Values of FSC (Clause 1.5). These are the values laid down in the Policy for association with FSC, requiring the business partners of FSC to not be directly or indirectly involved in violation of any of the core ILO conventions on Workers’ rights or with any of five forms of unacceptable forest related activities. 

It may seem like a complex and difficult task to prove that you are not even indirectly involved with these activities; however, FSC has issued guidance stating that certificate holders may use self-declarations to demonstrate compliance with Clause 1.5. A form has been provided by FSC for this purpose. Customers of Rainforest Alliance and NEPCon will receive the form directly from our local point of contact.

The revised standard also requires certificate holders to demonstrate their commitment to occupational health and safety (clause 1.6.1). Certificate holders may do this by implementing the following quality management measures in the sites covered by your FSC certificate:

• Appointed representative for occupational health and safety
• Company procedure(s) for occupational health and safety
• Training of staff on health and safety procedures

Other changes

In addition to the new social requirements, the revised FSC standard implies the following changes:

• Claims used on invoices and transport documents: The terms “FSC Pure”, “FSC Mixed Credit” and "FSC Mixed X%" have been replaced by “FSC 100%”, “FSC Mix Credit” and "FSC Mix X%",  respectively. This brings these claims into better alignment with the claims used for FSC on-product labeling, reducing the confusion that tends to occur when different claims are used for the same product category in different parts of the system.
   
• The Addendum FSC-STD-40-004b FSC Species Terminology has been withdrawn. The addendum requested companies to use an FSC-approved list of scientific species names. In order to provide more flexibility and simplify the process for companies to inform the species names of their products, FSC decided to withdraw the FSC Species Terminology in 01 October 2011 and from this date onwards, allow Certificate Holders to use other sources of information to define the species used in their FSC product groups. But to ensure that the scientific and common names are correctly written, certificate holders are encouraged to use the nomenclature of the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) Taxonomy Species Online Database. FSC is preparing a guidance document on species information that will soon be released.
   
• FSC has abolished its requirements for on-product declarations for products containing components that are not covered by FSC claims. The current standard requires certificate holders to specify any visible minor components.

Deadline for implementation

Certificate holders need to be in compliance with the new standard by 1 October 2012, but may switch to following it as soon as it becomes effective on 1 October 2011. If you wish to switch to the new standard prior to your next annual audit, you need to notify your certification service provider.