Technical Updates


Wednesday, 01 February 2017
New Chain of Custody Standard V3-0 - Effective April 1, 2017

 (© Sebastian Hillig via Compfight cc)© Sebastian Hillig via Compfight cc

February 1, 2016


On January 1, 2017, FSC published version 3-0 of the FSC Chain of Custody Certification Standard (FSC-STD-40-004 V3-0). The new standard will become effective on April 1, 2017, and all certificate holders will be evaluated to the new standard by March 31, 2018.

The following are the main highlights of the revision:

  • A new requirement for organizations to support transaction verification conducted by their certification body or Accreditation Services International (ASI). FSC will release additional information about this new clause over the next month.
  • The introduction of cross-site percentage and credit control systems for those certificate holders with multiple sites.
  • The introduction of requirements for applying the credit system to assembled wood product groups.
  • The extension of credit expiration from 12 months to 24 months.
  • The reduction of the labelling threshold for FSC Recycled wood products from 85% to 70% to align labelling threshold with FSC Mix.

FSC-STD-40-004 V3-0 is available below along with a crosswalk to assist with identifying changes between V2-1 and V3-0. FSC will also host live webinars for stakeholders to learn more about the revised CoC standards. Please register via the links below.

Webinars