How to become FSC-certified

The first question to ask yourself is: which of the two types of certificate do you want?

The Chain of Custody certificate (CoC) allows to follow the wood from its certified forest of origin up to the consumer. This certificate is required of all manufacturing or brokering company through which certified wood passes in transit, so that the FSC logo may appear on the final product. It is relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain, as it requires only a half-day audit which ensures that measures are taken to avoid "contamination" of certified wood with wood of noncertified origin.

The other type of FSC certificate, the Forest Management certificate, concerns you if you are a forest owner or manager. Woodlot owner groups, large forest owners, forestry cooperatives, timber license holders and the like who want to obtain FSC certification must apply for this type of certificate. It necessitates a thorough audit which may last a few days, conducted by a team of three to five assessors (see our Accredited certification bodies page for a listing of those who operate in Quebec). It is possible to undergo a pre-audit to see if you are far from the mark and what aspects need to be improved on. This mini-audit can avoid a second costly audit if you fail to meet the standards the first time around.

Familiarize yourself with the FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship in order to make your own assesment of how you meet them. There are no current FSC regional standards for Quebec, but there exist some for the Canadian Maritimes region and for Ontario's mixed-hardwood forests. Teh auditors will use what are known as generic standards, which are a broad enough interpretation of the P&Cs to apply them anywhere (and relying on the assessor's local knowledge to adapt them to regional conditions). However, since regional standards for Quebec will be developped by 2003, and in keeping harmonization between neighbouring regions in mind, the assessors will see that your forestry operations do not differ too much from what is required in these neighbouring regions. We therefore recomment that you read them, and they are available on the Regional Standards page.

Although FSC certification establishes threshold performance levels which must be met, the audit report may still give the passing grade to those who are near the mark. It can go on listing pre-conditions to meet before the certificate can be awarded, or it can approve the certification while listing certain conditions, which must be met within a certain period of time for the certificate to remain.

The costs of a forest management certificate can seem high at first: the full audit can cost above 20,000$CDN, and there is an annual "maintenance" audit, which costs a few thousand dollars. Certification bodies will better be able to gove you accurate numbers for your scale of operations. If you are a "small leagues player", il is worthwhile to explore the avenues of group certification, via a woodlot owners' group, a forest manager, or otherwise, in order to distribute the costs over a larger land base and among several applicants who share a common manager.