FSC framework to carry out regional studies of systems for sharing FSC credit released

Invitation for pilot tests and case studies until June 2010

8 March 2010

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The FSC Policy and Standards Unit (PSU) is inviting interested members, certificate holders and, through involvement of FSC National Initiatives, stakeholders to engage in regional studies to test and describe systems for sharing FSC credit across more than one production site.

FSC has released a framework document (see PDF link at the bottom) that defines the relevant parameters to be considered and expected outputs for the relevant research, testing, analysis and evaluation of models and methodologies for these so-called 'cross-site credit systems'. Conclusions and developed solutions following activities under this framework shall aim at providing factual grounds and clear cost-benefit analyses in order to allow an informed decision by the FSC Board of Directors and FSC membership about any recommended major system changes. Relevant research should be completed and the results submitted to PSU by end of September 2010.

The overall results and recommendations of this research initiative will be compiled and presented to the FSC Board of Directors in November for a decision about how to move forward with the relevant subject (see also 'Rationale and background' below). The final PSU report for the FSC Board is scheduled to be completed by mid October 2010.

First regional study starts in Sweden

FSC Sweden is facilitating a pilot project to explore possibilities to establish a credible and reliable system within FSC, for wood exchange and wood trading in the step between forest and first industry, based on a Wood Trade Accounting system.

In Sweden, assortment and geographical exchanges plays an important role in the wood supply chain of forest industry. This heavily reduces transport volumes, but means, with existing FSC CoC standard, a reduction of available FSC volumes at site-level. Widening the concept of “site” as currently defined in the FSC CoC standard to include a defined wood supply organisation, as a “functional organisation”, would facilitate wood exchange within the FSC system.

The pilot project will analyse possible pros and cons for the FSC system with such a change, when used together with a wood trade accounting system.The system will be tested regarding impacts on traceability, applicability, system integrity and market. Need of limitations will also be discussed.

The project period is set from March 2010 to September 2011. Stakeholders in Sweden will be invited to take part in the project during a seminar on 25th of March, in Skoghall, Karlstad.

Björn Österlöf will lead the project on a consultant basis, hired by FSC Sweden. For further information please contact Björn Österlöf, bjorn.osterlof @fsc-sverige.org, T +46 12 060 089 or +46 70 744 54 54

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Rationale and background

Permitting FSC-certified input credit for a particular FSC product group to be shared across multiple manufacturing sites would allow operations acting as a functional unit to centrally manage FSC credit without physically transferring material. If permitted, this could significantly minimise transport of FSC-certified wood/fibre material between manufacturing sites and within functional units and therefore minimise the product carbon footprint and associated costs. It would further allow organizations who experience the supply of and demand for FSC-certified material and products in different locations, to channel their FSC-certified supply into particular markets for FSC certified products.

During the review process for the FSC Chain of Custody standard FSC-STD-40-004, there was significant support for allowing the 'pooling' of FSC-credit,from rather restrictive scenarios up to scenarios of sharing credit between certified and non-certified companies. On the other hand, there were considerable concerns from NGOs that transfer of FSC credit would further weaken the link between FSC labelled products and certified forests to an extent that might not be acceptable from a customer point-of-view. Furthermore, concerns were raised that demand for FSC-certified raw materials could be 'transferred' from economically disadvantaged regions (e.g. lacking in infrastructure) or operations (e.g. small-scale forest operations) to higher developed regions and large-scale operations, thereby causing significant effects on how and where FSC input might be preferably sourced from in the future. Due to these opposing perspectives, the subject could not be resolved and was excluded from the 2006-2007 revision process. 

The further exploration of the subject was re-delegated to the FSC International Center and is now planned to be carried out through regional studies, coordinated by FSC National Initiatives.

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Interested parties please contact Stefan Salvador, s.salvador @fsc.org, T +49 (228) 367 66-24. Please note that FSC International will not design, manage or implement any studies, but instead will only provide technical assistance where requested in order to ensure policy consistency and adherence to the framework document.

Download the framework document here.