Chain of Custody (CoC) Certification of forest products based on the FSC system

International certification system Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

Short characteristics of the product / services:

International certification system Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was founded in 1993 on the initiatives of representative of international environmental organizations, wholesalers and retailers of timber, foresters, wood industry, associations of indigenous people, trade unions and certifications bodies from all around the world. The basic idea of FSC organization is to promote

• environmental responsible
• social beneficial
• economically viable

forest management worldwide and thus help to protect vanishing, vulnerable and devastated world forests. It was created to protect forests around the world and to prevent their devastation, which unfortunately still occurs. FSC certificate holder provides the evidence to final consumer that products made of wood, paper, or other forest products originate from responsibly managed forests taking into account nature protection requirements, considering social conditions of workers, local communities welfare and legality of harvested timber.

Products from certified forests go through chain of harvesting, processing, manufacturing and trading entities before they reach the final customer. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the flow of the material to keep the origin of the wood clearly demonstrable. This is called chain of custody (CoC). As the prove of wood origin, CoC certification links the forests certified according FSC forest management certification demanding modern rigorous environmental, social and economical on forest management requirements with the certified forest products.

Whom is the product intended for

Chain of custody certification is carried out by independent, qualified and accredited certification body such as TÜV SÜD. All processors, manufactures and traders who take legal possesion of the certified products must have the FSC CoC certificate to provide credible guarantee of the origin of wood in the product.
CoC certification is intended to processors, traders, distributors of wood, paper or others forest products but also packaging industry and printers. More than 22500 companies in more than 100 countries were already FSC CoC certified by March 2012.

Requirements of FSC system

The whole system and its requirements are described in normative documents developed by FSC organization and its national initiatives. The key documents for forest products processors and traders is FSC-STD-40-004 FSC Standard for Chain of Custody Certification and FSC-STD-40-005 Standard for Company Evaluation of FSC Controlled Wood. Information about the system, standards, lists of certified subjects can be found on FSC web pages www.fsc.org .
For information about the certified companies and its products please visit the online database http://info.fsc.org/.

Benefits for the companies:

• the internal company functioning and its processes improvement
• possibility to use the prestigious FSC Trademark on products, their packaging and business documents
• improvement of the products sales
• strengthening the positive image of the company and its credibility
• possibility to declare to business partners that you are certified by internationally recognized TÜV SÜD certification body
• use of the TÜV SÜD brand Octagon for promotional purposes
• use of favourable packages of combined audits - TÜV SÜD offers certification of wide range of systems and products
• very fast FSC Trademark approvals, several hours for printers, maximum 2 days for all clients
• publication of your company in the list of certified companies on FSC web pages http://info.fsc.org/.

Documents and standards for download:

1. FSC CoC Application form [ DOCX 57 kB ]
2. General FSC CoC Certification conditions [ PDF 299 kB ]
3. Procedure for dealing with complaints, appeals and disputes - public summary [ PDF 123 kB ]
4. FSC-PRO-40-004b Minor Components Derogation Application and Evaluation Form [ PDF 113 kB ]
5. FSC-POL-40-002 Group Chain of Custody (CoC) certification: FSC Guidelines for certification bodies [ PDF 173 kB ]
6. FSC-STD-40-003 Standard for Multisite Certification of Chain of Custody operations [ PDF 265 kB ]
7. FSC-STD-40-004 FSC Standard for Chain of Custody Certification [ PDF 439 kB ]
8. FSC-STD-40-004a FSC Product classification [ PDF 396 kB ]
9. FSC-STD-40-005 Standard for Company Evaluation of Controlled Wood [ PDF 223 kB ]
10. FSC-STD-40-006 FSC Chain of Custody Standard for Project Certification [ PDF 142 kB ]
11. FSC-STD-40-007 FSC Standard for Sourcing Reclaimed Materials [ PDF 374 kB ]
12. FSC-STD-50-001 Requirement for Use of the FSC Trademark [ PDF 1315 kB ]

 TÜV SÜD Czech on request provides all stakeholders with updated information on TÜV SÜD Czech FSC certification body structure, its committees and names of their members.