Certification Body Requirements for Sustainable Forest Management Certification

This standard, PEFC ST 1004, will set the requirements for certification bodies that carry out PEFC forest management certification, replacing the current Annexe 6.

Currently, the requirements for certification bodies carrying out sustainable forest management certification are defined at national level. With this new standard, we will harmonize the requirements, ensuring consistency in the implementation of PEFC sustainable forest management certification worldwide. 

We are also looking at reinforcing external stakeholder feedback within the certification process.

The progress so far

Work started on the new standard in 2016, as part of the PEFC standards revision process. The working group (WG 2) responsible for its development produced a draft of the standard before the process was paused. This WG also revised the PEFC Group Certification standard (ST 1002), which was approved in November 2018. 

In 2021, the development process re-started, with a call for nominations to complete the working group, now called the Certification Body Requirements for Sustainable Forest Management Certification Working Group. 

The completed working group met in January 2022, continuing the work already done on PEFC ST 1004. The second meeting is scheduled for April.