A revised version of the Requirements for Sourcing FSC Controlled Wood (V3‑1) has been approved and published. The revision of the standard was conducted in order to include changes resulting from decisions made by the FSC Board of Directors in Board Meeting 72.
- Certificate holders now have until December 31 2017 to transition from V2‑1 to V3-1 of the standard.
- The deadline by which simplified risk assessments must cease being used, including for organization-owned or organization-managed forests, has been removed.
- The FSC risk assessment process (which allows simplified risk assessments to continue) may be scheduled until 31 December 2017.
- Where national risk assessment (NRA) processes are under way, organizations may use NRA categories agreed upon by national consensus.
- Organizations may use approved categories of centralized national risk assessments (CNRAs) as they are approved, rather than waiting for all categories to be approved.
- Old national risk assessments (‘old NRAs’) remain valid until 31 December 2018.
- A method has been introduced to comply with the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) when using ‘old NRAs’.
Editorial changes in the new revision include:
- The term “simplified risk assessment” is now “company risk assessment” (CRA).
- The term “extended risk assessment” is now “extended company risk assessment” (ECRA).
- Additional footnotes have been added to clarify common misunderstandings (“origin at the FMU level”, “list of sub-suppliers”, etc.)
- Various typographical and grammatical errors have been corrected, and word-choice changes have been made.