The FSC trademarks provide a guarantee to consumers that the products they buy come from responsible sources enabling consumers to choose products that support forest conservation, offer social benefits, and enable the market to provide an incentive for better forest management.
The FSC trademarks are thus essential to the whole FSC system. FSC owns three registered trademarks:
- The initials FSC®
- The name Forest Stewardship Council®
- The checkmark-and-tree logo figure
Who can use the FSC Trademarks?
- FSC Product Labels: All companies involved in the production, manufacturing, processing, and trading of FSC-certified products must obtain FSC Chain of Custody certification in order to label products as FSC-certified.
- Promotional Logos: Retailers & Brands that sell FSC-certified (finished & labelled) products can apply to use the promotional logos. Learn whether you are eligible here.
Certified Companies: Any organization with a valid FSC certificate is, with authorization, allowed to use one or all of these FSC trademarks – identifying that your products have been produced using material from responsible sources or to promote the fact that they are certified. If you already hold FSC certification and want more information about using these trademarks, contact your certification body or learn more here. Learn more here.
Retailers who buy finished, FSC labelled products from and FSC-certified company and sell these on, unchanged, to end users may apply to FSC for a trademark license to enable them to use the FSC trademarks to promote these products in brochures, point of sale materials, in-store, on websites, in press releases. Learn more here.
Unsure which trademark you need? Take this quiz* below.
*This quiz is shared by our Canadian partners, so it is also translated in French.
Look up an FSC Certified Company or Trademark Licensee
Authorized trademark users have a unique license code that identifies them. To look up the license code for a Certificate Holder, search using the global Certificate Database.
To look up the license code for a Trademark Licensee, search using the Non-Certificate Holder Licensee database.
Trademark Misuse
If you think trademarks are being misused, please report this immediately.
To maintain the integrity of the system, it is important that FSC trademarks are used correctly.
FSC has developed a comprehensive system for authorizing the use of FSC trademarks and takes infringements of our trademarks very seriously.
WHAT DO THE LABELS MEAN?
Your choice makes a difference. Look for the logo.
FSC 100% labels identify products which are made of 100% virgin material from FSC-certified forests.
FSC MIX labels identify products which are made with a combination of FSC virgin fiber, and/or recycled materials with Controlled virgin fiber. The mobius loop represents the total pre and post consumer recycled fiber.
FSC Recycled labels identify products which are made with 100% recycled fiber. The mobius loop represents the total pre and post consumer recycled fiber.