Update on activities of Forest Stewardship Council supporting SPP

FSC's mission is to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forest. We aim to achieve this with a certification scheme which sets requirements for forest managers and labels for products that have used material from these forests. The reliability of these labels is guaranteed with a chain-of-custody certification system in which all companies that are part of a supply chain leading to labelled products have to be part. The whole system is controlled by third-party, professional certification bodies, which are overseen by a global accreditation organisation. FSC is a multistakeholder membership organisation with currently more than 1000 members, the majority being organisations (companies, environmental, development, social NGOs, trade unions, representatives of indigenous peoples, etc). All major decisions, including the content of standards, are being taken in balanced decisionmaking procedures in which the three "chambers" of members (environmental, social, economic) have equal power and the three chambers have to reach consensus or achieve majority support in each chamber. Also on the ground balanced multistakeholder consultation is important and FSC has elaborated, obligatory, consultation procedures. Transparency is essential, FSC provided summaries of all audits of forest managers on its website. more info, see our website. FSC certification is being used by many public authorities as (non-exclusive) evidence of sustainable sourcing in relation to wood and wood products. FSC’s main contribution is to expand the availability of products with FSC-claims. In 2017 some 23% of all industrial wood produced in the world came from FSC certified forests. Some 60.000 companies in the world use this raw material to produce construction wood, panels, furniture, flooring, all kinds of paper products, charcoal, pellets, etc. At the same time, FSC is further strengthening its verification system, so that an FSC-claim is a reliable claim and abuse is minimized. See further: www.ic.fsc.org In October 2017, some of the leading wood-using companies in the world made a public commitment to move to 100% FSC sourcing, as contribution to the implementation of the SDGs, see the Vancouver Declaration https://ic.fsc.org/en/for-business/vancouver-declaration In several countries, FSC National Offices are active in promoting the use of FSC materials as part of green or sustainable public procurement policies. FSC International assists such national offices in consistent messaging to public procurers, in particular with regards to construction projects, and it has developed a special publication for that purpose (focused on Europe). In Latin America a project is being implemented with a focus on mobilizing public procurers to increase local demand for certified wood products. At the EU level, FSC is involved in the formulation of EU Commission guidance for green public procurement, and even more in the revision of criteria for EU Ecolabels, which by themselves can be used by public procurers as verification tools. FSC’s stakeholder role is limited to those product and service groups where wood is (part of) the sourcing materials. FSC Italy has been part of a group of organisations, led by ICLEI, that recently produced a “Buying Sustainable Timber” toolkit, as part of campaign to promote sustainable public procurement. See: http://www.sustainable-timber-action.org/ FSC has special information for public procurers on its website: https://ic.fsc.org/en/choosing-fsc/public-procurement. see above