This standard is designed to give certification bodies and stakeholders more clarity as to the nature and extent of stakeholder consultation required for evaluation of FSC Forest Stewardship Standards.
This Standard contains the FSC International Generic Indicators (IGI), and is a key document in the FSC certification system. The IGI consist of the Preamble, ten Principles and their associated Criteria and Indicators, Annexes, Instructions for Standard Developers and a Glossary of Terms.
The objective of this standard is to provide the requirements for FSC-accredited certification bodies to assess conformity of The Organization against applicable requirements of the FSC normative
framework with regards to forest management certification, as well as reporting and decision making.
To access the current effective version 3.0, click here .
FSC is an international organization that provides a system for voluntary accreditation and independent third-party certification. This system allows certificate holders to market their products and services as the result of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable forest management. FSC also sets standards for the development and approval of FSC Stewardship Standards which are based on the FSC Principles and Criteria. In addition, FSC sets standards for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (also known as certification bodies) that certify compliance with FSC's standards. Based on these standards, FSC provides a system for certification for organizations seeking to market their products as FSC certified.
Version 4-0 is still applicable to those territories which have FSC certified forests but do not have Forest Stewardship Standards based on Version 5-0. Version 4-0 is available for download here: FSC-STD-01-001 Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship V4-0
This standard is mandatory for all FSC certificate holders who are entitled to use the FSC trademarks and sets out how to use the FSC trademarks correctly. The standard covers use of the FSC trademarks on FSC certified products, use for promotion of FSC certified products, and for promotion of the company's status as an FSC certificate holder. This standard forms the basis for evaluation and approval by FSC accredited certification bodies of all certificate holders' FSC trademark use.
This standard specifies the process requirements to be followed for the development and revision of regional (supra-national, trans-national), national or sub-national FSC Forest Stewardship Standards by registered Standards Development Groups and endorsed National Initiatives.
Please note that the content of this normative document has been streamlined into FSC-STD-20-007 Forest Management Evaluations Standard (V4-0)
Publication date: 1 February 2023
Effective date: 1 July 2023
End of transition period: 31 December 2024
The social impacts of forest management mean that forest management is a social as a well as a technical activity. It is not possible to involve all stakeholders in every forest evaluation. It is therefore essential that forest certification and its results should be open to public scrutiny. This is the only way to demonstrate to all interested or affected parties that the certification decisions are justified and acceptable. It is a basic requirement of the FSC scheme that certification bodies make a summary report of each certified forest operation publicly available.
This document provides an up to date list of countries for which the SLIMF eligibility criteria differ from those specified for international use in “FSC-STD-01-003 V1-0 EN: SLIMF Eligibility Criteria” .
This Glossary is a collection of the most frequently used terms and definitions that have been approved and are used in documents of the FSC Normative Framework, published in the English language.
This standard addendum stipulates the product type nomenclatures that shall be used by Certificate Holders for the purpose of classifying FSC Product Groups.
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FSC normative documents
FSC_Policy_responses_Ukraine__2022-12-19
FSC-STD-RAP-01-2021
FSC-STD-01-003 SLIMF Review Report
Focus Forests Landscape Dialogue – Info Sheet_EN
2018.07 New Members EN- FSC Internacional
2020.12 New Members EN - FSC Internacional
FSC core labour requirements self-assessment_USA V1-0
FSC core labour requirements self-assessment_Australia V1-0
Greenpeace Report - Stolen Future
FSC-STD-NPL-01-2018
The FSC National Forest Stewardship Standard of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
Forest Stewardship Standards (FSS)
V(01-00)
The present document was developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of Forest Stewardship Standards. It contains certification requirements for all forest operations in Nepal, including Small and Low Intensity Managed Forests. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard.