Revision of Requirements for Development and Maintenance of Locally Adapted FSC Requirements (FSS and CWRAs)

1. FSC-STD-60-006 V1-2 Process Requirements for the development and maintenance of National Forest Stewardship Standards;
2. FSC STD-60-002 V1-0 Structure and Content of National Forest Stewardship Standards;
3. FSC-PRO-60-006 V2-0 Development and Transfer of National Forest Stewardship Standards to the FSC Principles and Criteria Version 5-1, and
4. FSC-PRO-60-007 V1-2 Structure, Content and Development of Interim National Standards
5. FSC-PRO-60-002 V3-0 The Development and Approval of FSC® National Risk Assessments. 

The period of validity for all four documents has expired. Several factors and processes drive the revision of these requirements, including FSC Global Strategy and the current requirements for the revision of normative documents. The FSC Global Strategy requires outcome orientation, streamlining and data driven approach to be incorporated in the requirements for FSS development. Additionally, in the regular review process the Performance and Standards Unit (PSU), the Forest Management Community (FMC) and other stakeholders have found around 53 specific issues to be revised, e.g. inconsistency, redundancy and lack of clarity in the requirements for Forest Stewardship Standards.

During preparation for the revision process, PSU team has further identified the opportunity to merge process requirements for the development and maintenance of FSS with process requirements for the development and maintenance of CW risk assessments (currently in FSC-PRO-60-002 and subject to a separate, ongoing revision process). PSU presented the concept and results of a feasibility exercise to the Policy Steering Group (PSG), which supported merger of process requirements for developing and maintaining FSC FSS with FSC-PRO-60-002 V3-0, considering both detailed process requirements for local adaptations of international FSC requirements. As a result, starting in 2023, the revision process includes FSC-PRO-60-002 requirements in its scope.

The objectives of the revision process are to:

(1) improve the quality of the locally adapted FSC requirements, their relevance, understandability, completeness, simplicity, user-friendliness and consistency with other applicable requirements within the FSC normative framework; 

(2) incorporate outcome orientation (including monitoring and evaluation as well as data requirement) in the locally adapted FSC requirements process; and

(3) increase the efficiency, quality, and reliability of the processes for the development and maintenance of the locally adapted FSC requirements.

Cynthia Penaloza, country_requirements@fsc.org

Fernanda Rodrigues, Brazilian Forests Dialogue 

Aidas Pivoriūnas, FSC Lithuania 

Yadid Ordoñez, FSC Latin America 

Owen Davies, Soil Associate Certification Ltd

Revision of FSC Risk Assessment Framework Procedure FSC-PRO-60-002b. Learn more below:

You can stay informed of the developments on this revision process by staying tuned to this process page and by participating in public consultations and webinars.