Saturday, 03 March 2012
Comment on Multi-site Chain of Custody
FSC welcomes public comment on the first revised standards draft for Chain of Custody (COC) certification of multiple sites, FSC-STD-40-003 V2-0 D1-0. This draft standard merges the FSC policy for group certification and the FSC standard for multi-site certification of Chain of Custody operations.
In September 2011, FSC initiated this major review process by establishing a Working Group to guide the revision process. The key objective of merging both documents is to contribute to the simplification and overall consistency of the FSC Normative Framework.
FSC has specifically designed Group COC certification to be accessible to small operations for which individual COC certification may be too costly. The Group Chain of Custody Policy FSC-POL-40-002 was first published in July 2002 and underwent a revision in September 2004.
The FSC standard for multi-site Chain of Custody certification was specifically developed for larger companies operating at multiple locations and was published in 2007. Both group and multi-site COC certification allow Certification Bodies to evaluate participating operations or sites based on samples in recognition of existing common, centrally administered, and monitored control and reporting systems, thereby reducing auditing costs.
In addition to the review of the multi-site standard, FSC is revising the accreditation standard FSC-STD-20-011 to reflect the changes in the multi-site requirements, including determination of certificate growth limits and sampling criteria by the Certification Body. The public consultation of FSC-STD-20-011 will soon be released.
Please see the draft of the multi-site standard currently under consultation and send comments to Dorothee Jung, FSC COC Policy Officer, using this form.
In addition to the draft standard, FSC has developed a survey to facilitate the feedback process on a number of selected topics. The survey can be accessed here.
The deadline for submitting comments is April 13, 2012.
Contact:
Dorothee Jung
FSC COC Policy Officer
d.jung@fsc.org