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The 'Forest Stewardship Council' ('FSC') is a non-profit organization based in Bonn, Germany. The Council's stated mission is "to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests". It carries out this role by certifying sustainably managed forestry operations, and tracking their timber through the supply chain to the end product, which can then carry the FSC ecolabel, giving consumers the chance to choose to buy sustainable timber products over unsustainably harvested alternatives.

Contents

History

Certification process

Response

Competing forest certification system

References

External links

Official FSC sites

Assessments

Critics

History

This membership association was founded in 1993 and is funded by various businesses, governments and foundations, as well as by accreditation fees through a stakeholder owned system. It is endorsed and supported by environmental organizations such as FERN, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wide Fund for Nature. 6,000 companies around the world now participate in the FSC scheme, and over 730,000 square kilometers in more than 72 countries have been certified according to FSC standards. Major decisions are taken in a General Assembly, which meets every three years. Through consultative processes, FSC develops standards and policy for sustainable management of forests, and accredits certification bodies to assess candidate forests for certification.

Certification process

Any timber company or other organization that wishes to become FSC-certified and bear their logo must first contact an accredited third party certification body. The FSC does not directly certify forests but certifies the auditors that do. Certification representatives inspect the forestry practices to determine whether it complies with FSC standards. The timber products are tracked through the supply chain from source to sale using mobile GPS technology developed by Helveta. This guarantees that the products bearing the FSC logo are from the certified forests.
Consumers interested in the sustainable consumption of timber, lumber, paper or other forest products can seek to acquire FSC-certified products. FSC certification is also sometimes used to demonstrate sustainable management of forest for carbon sequestration purposes.

Response

Jared Diamond's ''Collapse'' praises FSC as a collaboration of environmentalists and business for a sustainable economy and compares it to similar organizations created by timber business that, in his opinion, do not keep their standards so high.
The Marine Stewardship Council is a similar organization covering sustainable fishery.
It has attracted less commercial and consumer support, though.

Competing forest certification system

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) is the main competing forest certification system, established by the forestry industry in response to the creation and increasing popularity of FSC. The PEFC is currently not supported by any environmental NGOs, and has been criticised for lack of transparency, lower environmental standards, and lack of unit level certification or third party authentication.^[1]

References

1. http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/our_solutions/responsible_forestry/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=22050

External links

Official FSC sites

★ Forest Stewardship Council

★ Maps and statistics on certified forest

★ Chain of custody certificates

★ Forest Stewardship Council of Canada

★ Forest Stewardship Council-United States

Assessments

★ Footprints in the Forests: A FERN's assessment of 8 forest certification schemes (2004)

★ Behind the Logo: A FERN's environmental and social assessment of four forest certification schemes - the FSC, PEFC, SFI and CSA (2001)

★ FERN's site on certification

Critics

★ Tage Klingberg, University of Gävle, A European view of forest certification issues for consideration. Why the organization of family forest owners in Europe turned away from FSC.

★ a Newsletter published by a logging industry association, the NAFI

★ Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman (a norwegian consumer watchdog group)