Tuesday, 24 June 2025
FSC US Forest Stewardship Standard Conditionally Approved
After years of hard work and dedication by US staff, board members, international staff, and countless stakeholders, the revised US Forest Stewardship Standard (FSS) was conditionally approved in May 2025. The Standard Development Group (SDG) and US staff have worked to address these conditions, which are few and deemed of minor impact to the standard, and resubmitted for final approval in June 2025.
The topline objectives of the revision of the US Forest Stewardship Standard (FSS) were to align with the FSC Principles & Criteria Version 5 and International Generic Indicators, and to address stakeholder-identified priority topics. The process was initiated in 2018, with two FSS drafts publicly consulted between 2020 and 2022.
Following consultations, a draft was submitted to FSC International, and over the next couple years the FSC US Board of Directors (serving as the Standard Development Group) responded to four iterative sets of comments from FSC International staff by making edits to the standard and/or providing explanations for why the indicators were presented as they were. In September 2024, FSC International staff determined the standard was ready to submit to the decision-making body, the International Policy & Standards Committee (PSC) for decision.
Due to the complexity of the standard and some fundamental concerns, the PSC responded that they were only able to conduct a preliminary review. They provided FSC US with a set of comments and recommended changes to implement within the FSS, before resubmitting for reconsideration. The FSC US Board (SDG) and FSC US staff worked closely together to address the PSC comments through further edits and development of explanations.
In March 2025, FSC US resubmitted the further revised FSS to FSC International and the PSC for reconsideration. After review, the PSC announced the conditional approval of the revised US FSS in May 2025.
With this good news in hand, based on our current understanding, we anticipate the official publication of the revised FSS in the next couple months. This is a significant change from our previous anticipated timeline of publication on Jan 1, 2026. We have requested an extended transition period, so as to remain consistent with previous communications stating the transition period would be from early 2026 to early 2027. We will provide updates regarding publication and transition period timelines as soon as we can.
Both the old standard and the revised standard will remain valid during the transition period. To remain certified, existing certificate holders will need to be audited to the revised standard prior to the end of the transition period.
In the interim period before the FSS is formally published and effective, FSC US staff will be working on developing materials and resources to support certificate holders during the transition period, including cross-walks between the old and new standard, summaries of significant changes, and clear information on the timeline and expectations during the transition period.
There will be a session dedicated to the revised FSS at the “FSC US Stewardship in Action 2025” conference in St. Louis, Missouri September 10-11, we’d love to see you there! Join us September 10–11 in St. Louis, Missouri.
While FSC has already initiated a process to revise the Principles & Criteria (from Version 5 to Version 6), with a planned completion date in late-2028, the new FSC US FSS will not need to be updated immediately. When the FSS is next up for revision (5 years after the new FSS becomes valid), it will need to be aligned with the new Principles & Criteria.