FSC
FORESTRY
CONFIDENCE MEDIUM · ANALYSIS ONLY, NOT AN AUDIT OR CERTIFICATION
Our read
FSC's forest management standard is the most demanding forestry standard in wide use, and it reaches things most schemes do not: high conservation values, indigenous peoples' rights, and core ILO labour clauses carried through into the chain of custody. The problem for a shopper is the chain of custody, not the forest standard. FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1 allows three control systems, and two of them break the physical link between the certified forest and the labelled product. Under the percentage system, certified content is averaged over a claim period. Under the credit system, output sold as FSC Mix Credit carries the same FSC Mix label as a 70 percent physical product, with no minimum certified fibre in that unit. The label does not distinguish them. The remaining share of an FSC Mix product is Controlled Wood, which is a risk screen against unacceptable sources, not a certification. Greenpeace International declined to renew its FSC membership in 2018, stating that FSC is not consistently applied where governance is weak. The usual reader error is treating FSC Mix as if it meant FSC 100 percent.
What it covers
- forest management units assessed against ten principles covering legal compliance, tenure, indigenous peoples' rights, community relations, forest benefits, environmental values, management planning, monitoring, high conservation values and plantations
- chain of custody from forest to the point the product is finished and labelled
- three output claims: FSC 100%, FSC Mix and FSC Recycled
- FSC Controlled Wood risk screening for the non-certified share of FSC Mix products
- core ILO labour requirements embedded in the chain of custody standard, including child labour and forced labour clauses
- trademark control: only products eligible for labelling may be promoted with FSC trademarks
- supplier certificate validity checks against the public FSC certificate database
What it leaves out
Not a criticism of the scheme. A standard is a scope, and this is where this one ends.
- the credit system is a mixed-credit model: an organisation banks FSC credits from certified input and sells a corresponding volume of output as 'FSC Mix Credit', which carries the ordinary FSC Mix label with no minimum certified content in that physical unit
- the percentage system averages certified content across a claim period, so an individual FSC Mix pack is not guaranteed to contain the labelled proportion
- the FSC Mix label requires only 70 percent certified or post-consumer material under the percentage route; the balance is Controlled Wood, which is risk-screened, not certified
- FSC Recycled paper carries no post-consumer percentage threshold at all
- no greenhouse gas accounting, carbon stock or Scope 3 requirement in the chain of custody standard
- no requirement covering downstream manufacturing energy, water, chemicals or effluent
- certification bodies are selected and paid by the organisation being certified
- chain of custody is not required for finished and labelled products moved by retailers, so the last stage of the supply chain is often uncertified
The scheme
| Issued by | Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) International, Bonn, Germany |
|---|---|
| Where it applies | Global |
| Audit and renewal | Five-year certificate with annual surveillance audits for both forest management and chain of custody. |
| Cost | Not published in the standards read. Certificate holders pay a certification body audit fee set commercially, plus an FSC annual administration fee scaled to turnover. |
What we read
FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1 EN Chain of Custody Certification, approved 14 January 2021, effective 1 September 2021; FSC-STD-01-001 V5-3 FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship
- what_it_omits (credit system labels as FSC Mix with no threshold) — Table E. FSC claims and corresponding FSC labels: FSC Mix percentage of at least 70% > FSC Mix; FSC Mix Credit > FSC Mix
- what_it_omits (credit system definition) — The credit system is an FSC control system which allows a proportion of outputs to be sold with a credit claim
- what_it_omits (percentage system averages over a claim period) — a percentage claim that corresponds to the proportion of claim-contributing inputs over a specified claim period
- what_it_omits (FSC Recycled paper no threshold) — FSC Recycled paper - no threshold applies
- what_it_covers (three label types, controlled wood in Mix) — The product is made with a mixture of materials from FSC-certified forests, recycled materials, and/or FSC-controlled wood.
- standard_version_read (FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1 version and effective date) — Version Number: 3-1; Effective Date: September 1, 2021
- standard_version_read (FSC-STD-01-001 V5-3) — FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship, Version 5-3
- renewal_period (annual audits) — Your certification body will conduct annual audits to assess conformance to your chain of custody certification.
- yko_assessment (Greenpeace withdrawal) — FSC is not consistently applied across regions, especially where there's weak governance
- independence_score (ASI as FSC assurance provider) — ASI provides assurance services to ... the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
What we could not establish
The chain-of-custody findings, including the credit system and the 70 percent Mix threshold, are quoted directly from FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1 and are high confidence. Two things I could not source within this session and therefore did not assert as fact: (1) the exact wording and current status of the November 1994 conversion cut-off in FSC-STD-01-001 Criterion 6.10 and the Remedy Framework that modifies it, because the FSC Principles and Criteria PDF and the remedy pages returned 404; (2) specific named cases of FSC-certified operations linked to conversion or illegal logging. The Earthsight investigation into Ukrainian timber supplied to IKEA and the FSC Policy for Association disassociation register are both relevant and well known, but the source pages returned 403 or 404, so no case is cited here. Certificate validity of five years is stated from general programme knowledge, not from a quoted source; only the annual audit requirement is quoted. Overall confidence set to medium because the forest-management half of the assessment rests on less direct sourcing than the chain-of-custody half.
Who holds it
Scored companies carrying this mark, highest first. Holding it is not the same as scoring well — the mark is one input of six.
| Company | Scope held | YKO score |
|---|---|---|
| Tony's Chocolonely | Not stated | 56.9 |
| Tide | Not stated | 52.5 |
| Theo | Not stated | 43.3 |
| Who Gives A Crap | Not stated | 39 |
| Darn Tough | Not stated | 32.3 |
| Bounty | Not stated | 29.8 |
| Cottonelle | Not stated | 28.5 |
| JUST Water | Not stated | 20.3 |
| Caboo | Not stated | 17 |
| bim bam boo | Not stated | 16 |
| Quilted Northern | Not stated | 14.5 |
| Cloud Paper | Not stated | 11.8 |
If you hold this certification, it is already on your record. What a buyer cannot see there yet is the evidence behind the parts this standard does not reach.