FSC® Chain of Custody Certification

A Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) Chain of Custody certificate for products proves that the wooden parts of your certified products are possible to trace back to well-managed forests, company controlled sources or recycled material.

Chain of Custody (CoC) certification allows companies that manufacture and market forest products to label them with the FSC brand.

What is FSC?

FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is a non-profit organization founded in 1990. The organization is devoted to encouraging the responsible management of the world’s forests and has developed the most recognized scheme for sustainable forestry and traceability of forests products, and the scheme is growing globally.

Companies that use wood or paper products in their businesses are increasingly recognizing their responsibility both to ensure that they know the origins of the wood/fibre used, and that the wood/fibre is produced in an environmentally responsible manner. The Chain of Custody (CoC) is the path taken by raw materials harvested from an FSC-certified source through processing, manufacturing, distribution and printing, until the final product is ready for sale to the end consumer.

There are three different FSC labels:

FSC 100%

Products with an FSC 100% label originate entirely from forests certified as meeting the environmental and social standards of FSC.

FSC Mix

Products with an FSC Mix label support the development of responsible forest management worldwide. The wood comes from FSC-certified well-managed forests, company-controlled sources and/or recycled material.

FSC Recycled

Products with an FSC Recycled label support re-use of forest resources and use only post consumer recycled wood or fibre in accordance with FSC standards.

Company controlled sources are controlled in accordance with FSC standards to exclude illegally harvested timber, forests where high conservation values are threatened, genetically modified organisms and violation of people’s civil and traditional rights.

To be able to use an FSC-label, you have to be certified against the appropriate FSC-standards. There are several different standards for the different types of wood sources, and standards for different types of certificates.

Where do I go from here?

For third party certification, you need to implement an effective environmental management system complying with the requirements of the standard. Please see description of the FSC CoC Evaluation Process. You will also find the relevant standards on the FSC homepage.

To apply for FSC CoC certification, please contact any DNV office for a quote. You will have to fill in an application form before we can calculate the time needed for the audit and the cost associated. The cost will depend on the number of days needed for the audit, preparation and report writing time as well as the travel cost. In addition, there will be a fee to FSC (according to FSC policy FSC-POL-20-005). For more information about the calculation of days, please see FSC CoC Evaluation Process.

For an overview of the FSC standards, please see the Become certified section on the FSC website. You can also directly access the FSC CoC standard here.

We provide FSC® (A000509) in collaboration with DNV Business Assurance Sweden AB.