FSC has worked extensively to ensure that FSC certification is a valuable tool for those obligated under the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR).

Operators (first placers of timber or derived products) are now liable if authorities discover that they have placed illegally harvested timber on the EU market. They are therefore obligated under the EUTR to implement a due diligence system (DDS) to minimise that risk.

The EUTR states that "any voluntary chain of custody mechanism" can be the basis for a DDS, as long as it fulfils the requirements of the Regulation. FSC has evaluated its compliance with the relevant requirements contained in the EUTR Implementing Regulation (Article 4) and Guidance Document (Part 6) and is able to conclude that it meets or assists in meeting all of the requirements. For further details on how the requirements are met, and how the use of the FSC scheme as part of a DDS can be justified to Competent Authorities, an "Implementation Guide for FSC Certificate Holders and Other Companies Selling FSC Products in the EU" is available to download from the FSC website (www.fsc-uk.org).

Good practice guidance

Information on implementing a DDS is contained within the PAS 2021 good practice guidance provided by the British Standards Institution (BSI) with sponsorship from WWFUK Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN-UK). Having been a member of the steering group which assisted in the development of PAS 2021, FSC UK can recommend this as a very useful and practical resource, with a particular focus on certification and EUTR.

Certification is not accepted as automatic proof of compliance with the EUTR but forest certification schemes can play a major role in establishing a "negligible" (the lowest level of risk recognised by the Regulation) risk of illegal timber in the supply chain and are an important consideration in risk assessment and mitigation.

Operators have the obligation to carry out risk assessment as well as mitigation as part of their DDS. If the assessment identifies a "negligible" risk, no further risk mitigation is needed.

Timber or timber-derived products holding FSC certification provide sufficient certainty of a "negligible" risk, thereby requiring no further risk mitigation (although some further risk assessment may be required).

Purchasing certified timber or timber products with all their associated documentation, together with evidence on species and country of harvest, is commonly accepted as one of the most straightforward routes to mitigate risks as an operator under the Regulation.

The current FSC system does not automatically require suppliers to provide information about country/concession of harvest or species. FSC has therefore published an Advice Note (ADVICE-40-004-10: Access to information regarding species and origin of timber) that obliges FSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certified suppliers to provide their customers with such information upon request. If the supplier does not have that information, they are obliged to use the Advice Note to go further up the supply chain until they have obtained the information. If necessary, suppliers can refer to an FSC memo that explains the relevance of timber legality for companies working outside the EU, US and Australia.

FSC contends that when the harvester is FSC certified, the risk of illegal harvesting is "negligible", since ensuring legality of forest management is an essential part of the FSC certification and Controlled Wood schemes. Therefore, there should be no need to collect information down to the level of region or specific concession of harvest.

The FSC CoC Standard had not required compliance with trade and customs legislation from CoC certificate holders. FSC therefore issued an Advice Note (ADVICE-40-004-11: Trade and customs laws) requiring FSC CoC certificate holders to have procedures in place that ensure compliance with these laws.

Since the EU-based importer then needs to get information to confirm this, FSC has also included the requirement to co-operate to collect information on compliance with trade and customs laws within the aforementioned Advice Note on information exchange (ADVICE-40-004-10).

Challenges remain

Even with all this in place, the information obligation remains a challenge, and time will tell what results the Competent Authorities will consider to be acceptable. A genuine DDS requires that the information be gathered in advance, so that a risk assessment can be completed before the actual order is made. When one works with a regular supplier who also has a stable resource provision scheme, it is possible to have this information beforehand, but when starting with a new supplier, obtaining this information in advance may prove more difficult.

FSC is working on an online claims platform (OCP) which, when implemented, will require FSC certificate holders to enter information into a cloud-based internet platform, including information on species and country/region of origin. This information will then be passed along and will be available to certificate holders receiving goods from a certified supplier. The OCP will be a useful tool for confirmation of information, and can be a useful element of the operator’s DDS if the information about previous shipments is useful in assessing the risk for future shipments.

FSC certification provides a straightforward method to mitigate risks and verifiable and credible supply chain information; it can also secure timber supply and minimise the risk for non-certified products (using FSC Controlled Wood assessment methodology).