Give your feedback on PEFC Group Certification! Public consultation open

20 December 2017 Group Certification

Working with smallholders is at the heart of our work. This is why group certification is an extremely important instrument in our forest certification toolbox.

Our revised Group Certification standard is now up for public consultation, and we are asking you to share your insights and knowledge to help us further improve this important standard.

Give your feedback now - deadline 18 February 2018.

What is group certification?

Group certification is a mechanism through which groups of small-forest landholders can organize themselves, pool their resources and work together to achieve certification. This makes certification accessible for small-forest owners.

The key to successful group certification is to balance the need for robust implementation of our requirements with the need to be as resource efficient as possible.

What has changed?

Group certification works through a combination of internal and external auditing. As not every smallholder is audited, costs are substantially lower, helping make certification accessible. However, this means that internal auditing must work flawlessly.

The revised standard will provide an innovative framework for internal monitoring and auditing in certified groups with a chapter on ‘performance evaluation’. This will include improved requirements for internal auditing, such as risk based sampling groups and minimum sample size, as well as strengthening the management system of the group itself.

By strengthening the internal auditing process, we can be even more assured that all forest owners within a group are managing their forests in line with the requirements and small-forest owners can continue to benefit from affordable certification.

Public consultations

PEFC invites all interested parties to give their comments on our revised Group Forest Management Certification standard - PEFC ST 1002:201X.

This standard defines the general requirements for national forest certification systems with group forest management certification.

This public consultation is one in a series of upcoming consultations as our standards revision process moves into its next phase. Over the next months, enquiry draft versions for several of the standards under revision will be ready for public consultations. Stay tuned!

This consultation is open from 19 December 2017 until 18 February 2018. Please submit your comments through our online consultation tool.