At the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC’s) 2011 General Assembly (GA) in Malaysia, the membership made a resounding call to simplify, clarify, and ensure the chain of custody standard is correctly implemented. FSC initiated a process to revise the chain of custody (COC) standard (FSC-STD-40-004), to put into action five of the motions approved at the GA. These revisions will affect more than 29,000 companies. We are now seeking stakeholder feedback on the revisions.
The CoC standard revision process resulted in six main amendments:
- Fewer documents
- Clearer credit system requirements
- Proposal to introduce a new cross-site credit system
- New transaction verification section
- A change in the classification of pre-consumer reclaimed paper
- A change in the labeling threshold for FSC Recycled label
In a concerted effort to facilitate the review process, the revised draft (see below) will be shared as a Crosswalk file (see below) that (1) identifies all the differences between the existing standard and the draft revised standard, (2) provides context for the change. You can view these changes in greater detail, view additional information designed to simplify the review process, and to provide your feedback.
Typically the consultation period is 60 days, but to account for the holiday season we have extended the consultation an extra 10 days to allow stakeholders enough time to provide feedback. In addition to this, FSC is going to send consultation reminders in January and will provide 6 webinar opportunities (in English and Spanish) in order to support stakeholders' participation in this consultation process. The last day for stakeholders to submit their feedback is 28 February 2015.
Follow the link to ‘FSC-STD-40-004 Standard Revision’ page.
WEBINARS
FSC International will host a number of webinars to review the changes of the CoC standard, important deadlines and how to provide feedback. To register today, visit: https://ca.fsc.org/events.240.354.htm
