FSC and PEFC are not law but market requirements, and that does not make them optional in practice: for anyone selling wood- or paper-based products to larger customers, certification is a condition of doing business. The systems have two parts. Forest management certification is about how the forest is managed. Chain of custody certification is about everything that happens afterwards, through every change of ownership up to your customer. It is the second part that takes work every day, and the first that usually gets the attention.
What the course covers
- How FSC and PEFC are built, what separates them, and why many companies hold both.
- What the forest management standards require and how the audit process works.
- Chain of custody: material categories, control systems, and how certified and non-certified material is kept apart — physically or in the accounts.
- Product groups, volume accounting and claim systems, which is where non-conformities usually arise.
- Purchasing, supplier control and controlled wood.
- Logos, licence codes and claims: what may be said about a product, where and by whom.
- Internal audit, non-conformity handling and the ongoing management between audits.
The certificate is a system, not a piece of paper
What is examined at the audit is the routines: that purchases were checked, that the volumes add up, that the claims on the invoice are backed, and that non-conformities were handled. A certificate in reception and a spreadsheet nobody maintains is the most common cause of a finding.
Questions about FSC and PEFC
- What is the difference between FSC and PEFC?
- Both certify responsible forestry and traceability, but they are built differently. FSC is a global system with a standard of its own; PEFC is an umbrella that endorses national systems — in Sweden, Swedish PEFC. The requirements on your traceability are similar in structure, but the rules for claims and labelling differ, and they must not be mixed. Many companies are certified to both because different customers ask for different things.
- We only buy certified material. Do we still need chain of custody?
- Yes, if you want to sell on with a certified claim. Certification does not travel with the material automatically — it travels with the company that can show how the material was kept apart and accounted for through its own operations. Without a chain of custody certificate you may not make the claim, however certified the material was when it arrived.
- How does certification relate to EUDR?
- They solve related problems but are different things: certification is a market requirement, the Deforestation Regulation is law. A certified traceability system makes the collection work for EUDR due diligence easier but does not replace it. The course covers the link so the work can be built once.
- Who here should take it?
- Whoever is responsible for the certification and whoever works inside it every day: purchasers, quality and sustainability managers, production and warehouse staff, and salespeople who word claims in quotations and on invoices.
Training in FSC and PEFC
An online course at your own pace, to spread across purchasing, production, the warehouse and sales.
See the courses