
Members propose motions to prioritise issues or ideas that are important for the development of FSC. A motion is a proposal to change or create a FSC Policy or Statute through member discussion, debate and voting. Statutory motions are proposals to amend the FSC Statutes or Principles & Criteria. Policy motions are proposals for amendments to FSC policies or operational procedures. Use the filter tool to view motion by status.
Download the Update on Motions Implementation Approved at the 2021-2022 General Assembly here: English | Spanish | French
The FSC Board of Directors is mandated by the FSC AC statutes to manage the organization. The board of directors is the highest decision-making body in the organization after the FSC General Assembly (which is the supreme authority of the organization), being elected by the FSC membership to guide and provide oversight to the organization.
We hosted two identical meetings to allow the participation of our global membership. These took place via Zoom.
You can watch the recordings of the main plenary session here:
The FSC general assembly is FSC’s highest decision-making body, attracting hundreds of participants from indigenous people, environmentalists, business and others in FSC membership. The GA is traditionally held every three years, however the general assembly planned for 2020 was re-scheduled to take place in two parts at the 2021-2022 general assembly. The first part took place virtually in 2021 and the second part will take place as a hybrid event with in-person and online components.
The in-person part of the FSC general assembly is planned to take place in Bali, Indonesia. Learn more about what happens at the general assembly.
The importance of forest stewardship is more apparent than ever as we face global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequities. The FSC Global Strategy 2021-2026 focuses on growing our reach by demonstrating the value and benefits of forest stewardship in combatting these challenges and achieving our 2050 vision of resilient forests sustaining life on earth.
FSC is updating the Lists of FSC Highly Hazardous Pesticides based on the existing criteria, indicators, thresholds and sources through an accelerated revision process as described in FSC-PRO-01-001 The Development and Revision of FSC Requirements.
The first draft of the standard FSC-STD-60-004a FSC International Generic Indicators for the use of Highly Hazardous Pesticides is now available for public consultation until 01 April 2020 and can be accessed here. We invite all stakeholders to provide feedback.
We are seeking FSC chamber members and technical experts with knowledge and experience in forest management and controlled wood for the working group tasked with revising the FSC Controlled Wood Standard for Forest Management Enterprises. The call for applications will be open from 17 December 2019 to 17 January 2020.
FSC is seeking candidates for a technical working group to develop a risk-based approaches (RBA) assurance system for forest management certification, and to finalize the revision of the RBA procedure and guideline. The call for applications is open from 13 March to 31 March 2020.
There is so much happening at FSC around innovations. We are exploring wood identification technologies to improve traceability, building a new tool to screen bad actors before they enter the FSC system, developing a blockchain-based system to track real time transactions of FSC-certified materials, and many others.
In 2020, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) commissioned SmartCert, an independent assessor, to assess allegations made by Mighty Earth against the activities of Olam Palm Gabon – a joint venture of Olam Group and the government of Gabon.
By Barbara Bramble on behalf of the FSC International board.
Members are invited to participate in the consultation on the FSC Network Policy.
Growing concerns over illegal salvage logging in the Russian Federation prompted FSC Russia to launch a study to assess the risks of illegal timber – especially timber obtained illegally through salvage logging – entering FSC supply chains.
Publication date: 1 February 2023
Effective date: 1 July 2023
End of transition period: 31 December 2024
The following requirements aim to ensure that the certification body decision making entity has sufficient information on which to base its decisions with respect to conformity with FSC forest stewardship standards, and to help FSC ensure that there is consistency in decision making between different certification bodies.
Publication date: 1 February 2023
Effective date: 1 July 2023
End of transition period: 31 December 2024
The social impacts of forest management mean that forest management is a social as a well as a technical activity. It is not possible to involve all stakeholders in every forest evaluation. It is therefore essential that forest certification and its results should be open to public scrutiny. This is the only way to demonstrate to all interested or affected parties that the certification decisions are justified and acceptable. It is a basic requirement of the FSC scheme that certification bodies make a summary report of each certified forest operation publicly available.
This document provides FSC’s formal interpretation of requirements included in FSC-STD-20-007. An updated version was published on 1 August 2024.