Saturday, 03 March 2012
US FSC Group Chain-of-Custody Eligibility Requirements
The FSC Group Chain-of-Custody Certificate was designed to allow smaller forest products companies to join together to share certification costs and pool the resources of the group together to streamline the certification process.
The goal was to make FSC Certification available to small-sized organizations that otherwise would not be able to participate.
Recent changes to the Forest Stewardship Council Eligibility Requirements for Group Chain-of-Custody members in the US include the following changes:
- Companies participating in the FSC Group Chain-of-Custody Program can have up to $5,000,000 in annual sales of forest products. This was increased from $1,000,000. This was a proactive move by the FSC-US national office, in response to a stakeholder working group.
- Companies that exceed the $5,000,000 annual sales cap for two consecutive years lose their eligibility for participation in the FSC Group Certificate.
- FSC Group Chain-of-Custody Certificate participants in the United States are no longer restricted to only 25 employees. There are no restrictions for number of employees in the revised U.S. FSC Chain-of-Custody Group Eligibility Criteria.
Andrew Ramirez was hired as in intern in 2007 by Midwest Hardwood Corporation from the University of Minnesota’s Bio-Based Products Management and Marketing Program. Midwest Hardwood Corporation is a leader in producing FSC Certified Hardwood Lumber and has been continuously FSC Certified since 1995 (SW-COC-000008)
Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran on the Woodworking Network. Thank you to Andrew Ramirez for submitting it to FSC for our newsletter. If you have a story you’d like us to consider, please email Brad Kahn (b.kahn@us.fsc.org).