FSC-US Standards Revision Process
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The Forest Stewardship Council has initiated the process to revise the set of FSC regional standards that cover forests in the U.S. This process builds off an independent review of the nine regional standards and a methodology informed by extensive stakeholder consultation and FSC-US board approval.
Revision of the FSC-US Standards
The revision is divided into the following sections and documents:
 Methodology
Summary and Working Group Terms of Reference
FSC-US Standards Committee and Working Group members
Draft National Standard for Revision
Opportunities to be Involved
Background and Supporting Documents
Background
The Forest Stewardship Council has a mission to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests. One of the key methods for accomplishing this mission is through the development of standards based on agreed principles for responsible forest management.
In the U.S. there is a set of nine regional standards that have been developed based on the FSC Principles and Criteria. These standards are used to measure compliance of forest management operations to the FSC Principles and Criteria. Each standard has a unique set of indicators that were developed, and are used, to assess forest management operations in each region.
The Forest Stewardship Council requires that national and regional standards be reviewed and revised at least every five years. The revision process is seen as an opportunity to build on the foundation set by the current standards but is not considered equivalent to the drafting of new standards. The goal of the revision is to ensure that FSC-US standards effectively implement on the ground the Principles and Criteria of the FSC. The first step in this process was the Standards Review. Based on that review and subsequent stakeholder comments, the Revision will focus on the following issues:
- Unification of the regional standards into a national standard with regional variation for key Indicators.
- The development of Family Forest relevant indicators to address scale issues.
- The development of an HCVF Framework that supports the implementation of Principle 9.
- Inclusion of extensive guidance and intent notes to better communicate Criteria and Indicators intent.
- Revision of indicators to adapt the standards for the requirement that operations must comply at the Indicator level instead of the Criterion level.
- Inclusion of new issues identified by stakeholders that the FSC-US Board and Standards Committee agree are necessary to include in the revision.
The revision process is separated into three areas:
- The Decision-making branch – The Standards Committee. This group represents the FSC-US membership through the elected FSC-US Board and non-Board experts.
- The Crafting branch – The Standards Working Group. This group is responsible for crafting the language of the standards, and is represented by individuals with technical expertise such as experienced auditors, certificate holders, or recognized subject matter experts.
- The Consultation branch – Stakeholder reviewers and input-providers. With the aim of obtaining input from any and all possible stakeholders, there is a robust process of stakeholder input that recognizes the crucial role stakeholders play in the development of FSC standards.
The timeline for the revision process is to submit the standard to Accreditation Services International by May 2008.
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