Chain of Custody Certification CoC provides assurances that the final wood product can be traced back to a sustainable source and that production processes used to transform the finished product have been implemented with due respect for environmental, economic and social standards.
If an organisation is advertising certified products, e.g. FSC / PEFC it does not necessarily mean they only sell certified products, whatever certification they are offering must be clearly stated on all sales/purchasing and invoicing documentation showing the claim of certification and have the valid Chain of Custody (CoC) code. You can find more information on this here.
Third Party Verification- It is critical to ensure that the provider of the certified wood or forest products related goods has an Independent Third Certification Body for scrutiny and verification in the UK Independent Third-Party Certification Bodies include;
- Exova BM TRADA
- Certification & Timber Grading (CATG)
- Soil Association Certification Limited
- SGS ICS
- NEPCon
- KPMG Performance Registrar Inc.
- Control Union (UK) Limited
- Bureau Veritas Certification
- Interface NRM Ltd
Please note that all FSC accredited certification bodies are accredited by Accreditation Services International. ASI also accredits certification bodies for MSC and RSPO among others. United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) has nothing to do with ASI or FSC. However, PEFC do use UKAS and other national accreditation bodies.
There are different types of Chain of Custody e.g
TYPES OF CHAIN OF CUSTODY CERTIFICATION
There are two types of certification to choose from, depending on the scale and type of your operation:
- For organizations processing or selling forest products: certification of single businesses or facilities, or of multiple sites under multi-site or group certification (this could be for large companies that operate multiple sites, or smaller enterprises that choose to group together to achieve collective certification).
- For projects: one-off certification issued to individual objects or buildings that are totally or partially made using FSC-certified components or PEFC Certified components.
