Certification Body Accreditation

FSC sets the standards for forest management and chain of custody certification, and defines the procedures that certification bodies should follow in their certification assessments.

The following resources are relevant:

FSC-STD-20-001 General requirements for FSC accredited certification bodies

FSC-STD-20-007 Forest management evaluations

FSC-STD-20-011 Chain of Custody Evaluations

Accredited certification bodies are checked regularly to make sure they operate in line with our rules.

FSC is the only global forest certification system to have an integrated accreditation programme that systematically checks its certification bodies.

Assurance Services International (ASI) is responsible for checking certification body compliance with our rules and procedures through a combination of field and office audits. All FSC-accredited certification bodies must meet FSC accreditation requirements.

In the same way that certification bodies carry out annual checks on holders of FSC forest management and chain of custody certificates, so ASI carries out annual checks on the certification bodies, through office and field audits.

Past and upcoming accreditation assessments can be seen on the ASI website.