Project certification is based on the FSC Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard for Project Certification which provides a set of minimum requirements for sourcing FSC-certified material used in the project. The project manager must comply with the standard to claim the certificate. FSC project certification streamlines the certification of complex products by providing one project certificate rather than individual certificates for each project participant.

Please access the FSC certificate database to view the list of project certificates. For more information on project certification, please download our Project Certification factsheet and/or the FSC CoC Standard for Project Certification.

[Source: FSC I.C.]

It is hoped that these national competitions will help to raise awareness and understanding of the FSC logo. We would like to thank Kimberly Clark for their sponsorship of these two competitions and all those who have donated prizes.

As a sponsor of the event, the FSC will be inviting a delegation of fifteen individuals from companies and organizations that have been instrumental in promoting responsible forest management to attend the event. Many companies in the FSC delegation utilise the FSC label to ensure a credible link between responsible production and consumption of forest products. This label enables consumers and businesses to make purchasing decisions that benefit people and the environment as well as providing ongoing business value.

Mr. de Freitas will be joined Rob Cameron (CEO, Fairtrade Labelling Organization), Bart Houlhan (Co-founder, B Corp) and Brendan May (UK Chairman, Rainforest Alliance) in a panel moderated by Dylan Tanner (CEO, Ekobai). Together, these experts will both identify opportunities for certifications to work synergistically as well chart the course for the development of certifications into the future.

Details of events and promotions can be found here and there is a map of UK events and displays.

For further information please contact FSC UK (info@fsc-uk.org)

Contact FSC UK (info@fsc-uk.org) for a copy of the new advice note.

Torryhill Chestnut Fencing will be exhibiting at the Kent County Show.

Don’t forget to ask about FSC Friday - Open Day, to be held in Torryhill Chestnut Fencing wood yard on Friday 24^th September 2010. 

http://www.torryhill.co.uk/news/news.aspx?p=1051663

www.henandhammock.co.uk

You can access FSC-DIR-40-005, the FSC Controlled Wood directive from the Policy and Standards section of FSC UK Document Centre.

Please note that Advice # 4 (documentation to verify the district of origin) has been slightly reworded in line with the General Assembly Motion # 24. Instead of requiring documentation to the FMU level, it is now required to have documentation to the forest level. This allows a certain flexibility to address the different realities of invoicing (FME level, group level, forest owners association, etc.) without changing the rigour of the requirement.

To provide greater legal protection for our trademarks, from henceforth Trademark Resource Pack Holders will be issued with licences; the intention being that FSC UK should act as the authorised licensor in the United Kingdom.

Licences will be subject to annual renewal. An annual administration fee, covering the cost of registration, approving claims and verifying the result, will be payable when the licence is issued. A proportion of the administrative fee will be put towards improved ‘policing’ of those companies outside the FSC system that gratuitously use our trademarks without any permission at all.
For 2010 at least, fees will be calculated on a scale from zero (for not-for-profit organisations not trading in FSC-certified products) through 5 bands to a maximum of £650 per annum, depending on our estimate of the likely workload to FSC UK of approving and verifying a year’s worth of claims in advance. Fees may not necessarily reflect turnover: a good track record of supplying accurate evidence of claims will be taken into account, as will be the number of likely requests.

In return for the annual fee, FSC UK undertakes to:
• Ensure that using FSC registered trademarks is as convenient and straightforward for licensees as possible. We will provide sufficient initial information to get licensees started and subsequently an efficient trademark approval service for all incidental requests;
• React promptly should our attention be drawn to trademark misuse by other companies, using a sliding scale of deterrents to prevent recurrence;
• Put in place provision, subject to separate negotiation, for licensees to approve some or all of their own trademark use, dependant on appropriate safeguards and competencies;
• Promote licensees and their FSC-certified products on the product-search area of our website.

These new licensing arrangements will be introduced over the next 6 months or so. They will apply automatically to new applicants for trademark requests and we will have a programme for approaching existing Trademark Resource-pack Holders.

Licensees will be required to sign a Licensing Agreement, the main provisions of which are:
• To make payment of the appropriate fee;
• To abide by the latest rules issued by FSC on the correct use of trademarks;
• To obtain prior approval for all trademark use unless subject to the special provision noted above;
• To make appropriate materials available to FSC UK for the purposes of checking correct use;
• To accept that a licence may be suspended or terminated if the licensee fails to comply with its terms.

We hope that this removes some of the uncertainty that has surrounded the question of ‘FSC trademark licensing’ over the last couple of years. We believe the charges are reasonable and will reflect a fair exchange for the costs involved in ensuring that FSC’s trademarks remain credible and respected.

This year FSC Friday will be celebrated on Friday 24th September. Please contact Amruta at
projectofficer@fsc-uk.org to register your support or to find out more about this year‘s celebrations.

Amruta studied at BVIEER (India), Bangor University (UK) and University of Copenhagen (Denmark) at post-graduate level. She has worked at MITCON consultancy and EAST NGO focusing mainly on environmental issues. At Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, she worked on climate change & rural livelihoods. Amruta comments “After post-graduation, I have always wanted to start my career with a reputable and well-renowned organisation where I can utilise my qualifications and skills whilst learning new ones. FSC UK has provided me with a perfect platform and I am delighted and proud to be a part of FSC UK. I look forward to learning more about the FSC system and the co-ordination and organisation of events for a national level awareness campaign.”

From 1st to 4th June Hay on Earth events and workshops will be taking place on the Elmley Foundation Dream Stage.

On each of the main workshop days shortlisted groups will be invited to present their ideas for sustainability projects that show leadership, innovation and more than a little flair. The best ideas on each day will receive a grant of £10,000 to take their ideas onwards and upwards. FSC UK have been invited to attend and present on Thursday 3rd June.

At the end of each day, having networked, learnt, developed, tweaked and polished their ideas, two speakers from each of the projects will give a three minute presentation to an audience that includes panelists, experts, other groups and members of the Hay Festival public. The audience will vote on the project that catches their eye most, and the results included in the final decision by the grant sponsors, Welsh Assembly Government.

Jane Davidson, Welsh Assembly Minister for Environment, Sustainability & Housing, will announce the winners of the Wales Sustainable Development grants on the afternoon of Friday 4th June.

For more information about Hay on Earth click here. For more information about the Hay Festival click here.

The closing date for applications is 28th May 2010 and applications must be made through the GO Wales website

To be eligible for GO Wales placements applicants will be expected to have an address in Wales or be studying at a Welsh higher education institution or be working in Wales. Students must also have EU citizenship.

Hanson Clarinets, the UK’s largest clarinet manufacturer, will be using FSC African blackwood. The chain of custody links all handlers of FSC-certified African blackwood, starting with forest harvesters in Tanzania and ending with instrument manufacturers and retailers in the West.

Alastair Hanson, Co-Founder of Hanson Clarinets says: “We are proud to become the world’s first FSC-certified maker of woodwind instruments. We buy our wood responsibly to help safeguard the hugely valuable natural resources of the tropical forests that provide the material needed to make clarinets. We hope that our commitment will help persuade other makers to join in protecting endangered species and in turn work to protect the future for forests, wildlife, communities and of course music.”

The world’s first harvest of FSC-certified African blackwood was carried out in December 2009 in a Village Land
Forest Reserve managed by Kikole village, southern Tanzania, under the guidance of the Mpingo Conservation Project. Kikole received a payment of around £1,200 in return for 15m3 of African blackwood, a sum 400 times greater more than they would have received before FSC-certification.

The wood is currently being processed at an FSC-certified sawmill in Tanzania and will shortly be exported to the UK.

Neil Bridgland, Sound & Fair Campaign Manager, says: “This a massive step forward in our campaign to realise a sustainable trade in African blackwood timber and help lift some of the world’s poorest people out of poverty. Many years of hard work have gone into creating the required infrastructure in Tanzania to export FSC-certified hardwoods and now we have the commitment of one of the UK’s major woodwind instrument manufacturers to drive theprocess through. Very soon clarinet players will be able to make purchasing decisions based on ethical considerations as well as quality.”

Hanson Clarinets expect to launch their first FSC-certified clarinets in late 2010. For further details on this story click here

The organisers of IPEX 2010 have created special packages for not-for-profit organisations wishing to exhibit at the event. Trevor Crawford, Event Director for IPEX 2010 explains, “There is a wide range of global not-for-profit bodies serving the industry, playing such an important part to printers and the entire print production chain worldwide. We’re delighted to be able to offer them a free platform which will be easily accessible to visitors, providing an invaluable information hub.”

On the 18th May, FSC UK will also be giving a seminar, entitled “Promoting your environmental credentials: The use of the FSC logo”, where we will look at the use of the FSC logo on printed material and explore some of the myths surrounding this.

If you would like to arrange to meet FSC UK staff at IPEX, please contact the office to arrange a suitable time.

The Criteria for Evaluating Category A Evidence have now been updated to include the new social criteria and two new assessment criteria on ‘Conversion; and ‘National level application’. CPET would like to thank all the stakeholders who provided comments on the draft criteria through the consultation.

The updated criteria are available for download here: Criteria for Evaluating Certification Schemes (Category A Evidence) Third Edition (April 2010) (PDF)
The forest certification schemes approved as ‘Category A evidence’ are reviewed biennially to ensure that they continue to provide evidence of compliance. The 2010 review has now been initiated and will cover a full review of the schemes: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

This year’s review will not include a full review of SFI, CSA and MTCS, as they are all endorsed by PEFC. The review will include both random samples as well as specifically selected FSC and PEFC national schemes, all of which will be assessed against the new Social and ‘Conversion’ criteria in the context of the ‘National level application’ criterion.

As a part of the 2010 review of certification schemes to monitor their continued compliance with UK government timber procurement policy evidence of non-compliance submitted by stakeholders will also be considered.

CPET therefore invites stakeholders to provide evidence of non-compliance by PEFC, FSC and their national schemes. Non-compliances may relate to either:
- failure by a scheme’s documented requirements to meet one of the criteria set out in Criteria for Evaluating Certification Schemes (Category A Evidence) Third Edition (April 2010)
- failure by a scheme to implement its own documented requirements. Please note that it is expected that the schemes’ official complaints procedures have been pursued where appropriate.

Evidence submitted will be checked as set out in Section 2.1.3 of the Methodology for reviews of timber certification schemes (March 2008).

The comment period will close on 14th May 2010, 12 pm. The comment form is available to download from the CPET website

Since the announcement of the inclusion of social criteria by Hilary Benn at January 2010 Chatham house Illegal logging conference, Defra and CPET have been working to ensure that the inclusion of social criteria in the application of the UK Government timber procurement policy is effective and practical. There were a number of challenges, not least due to the fact that current interpretation of EU procurement rules means that these do not accommodate for social criteria to be part of the specification, but can only be included in the contract performance clauses.

The main focus has been to update the Government’s timber procurement advice note (TPAN). The updated version (April 2010) includes a revised model specification text and model contract clauses (annex B and C). The updated TPAN is available to download from the CPET website.

Updating the TPAN also meant that the UK Government’s Legality and Sustainability definition document needed revising. It is crucial that the definition referred to in the model specification text, be clear in stating that social criteria cannot be a part of the specification and should not be listed as another criterion. However, it was felt that social criteria should be included to ensure compliance during the management of a contract through contract performance clauses. The Government’s updated Legality and Sustainability definition is also available for download.

CPET will over the coming months review FSC and PEFC to ensure that they continue to ensure compliance with the UK government timber procurement policy now with the inclusion of new criteria. Only in the rare cases where the forest source is not certified will more work to show compliance with the social criteria be needed, but even so, in most cases legislation will ensure that criteria have already been met. CPET will, over the coming weeks, amend the Category A and Category B evidence guidance to include social criteria and the new criteria on ‘conversion’ and ‘governance’.