The Forest Stewardship Council International Center is an international not-for-profit organisation established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC is a certification system that provides internationally recognised standard-setting, trademark assurance and accreditation to companies, organisations, and communities interested in responsible forestry.
Find out more about FSC at - https://fsc.org/en
ISEAL Code Compliant organisations have successfully adhered to our previous Codes of Good Practice (Standard-Setting, Impacts and Assurance) and have committed to aligning their systems to the ISEAL Code. Independent evaluations against the ISEAL Code commenced in October 2025, and organisations must demonstrate full adherence to the ISEAL Code by October 2029 to maintain their ISEAL Code Compliant status.
Please note, all ISEAL Code Compliant members are also ISEAL Community Members.
The ISEAL Code came into effect on 1 March 2024. Organisations that had adhered to the previous Codes of Good Practice were granted an 18-month transition period to align their system(s) with the ISEAL Code. For further information, visit: What is ISEAL Code Compliant.
From October 2025, independent evaluations against the ISEAL Code will commence in accordance with the Independent Evaluation Procedure. ISEAL Code Compliant organisations are required to successfully close an evaluation across the full scope of the ISEAL Code. This can be done through a single, full-scope evaluation or through phased specific-scope evaluations. Evaluations must be completed within four years of the end of the transition period, no later than October 2029, to maintain ISEAL Code Compliant status.
Details on the evaluation schedule will be made publicly available.
FSC reviewed its standards in 2019 and agreed not to launch a revision process.
As a result of this independent evaluation, FSC will make the following improvements to their assurance system:
- Update their risk management plan to clearly define the reviewing process and decision-making body.
- Update the list of data sources used in risk evaluation and monitoring to better reflect the wide variety of sources used by FSC.
- Translate the training activities for assurance staff into a framework that can be applied and adapted to future needs.
As a result of this independent evaluation, FSC have made the following improvements to their M&E system:
- Enhanced dashboards presenting outcome analyses on their website improving the transparency and clarity of their impact reporting.
- Updated dashboards with evaluation purposes, questions, methodologies, and limitations. They identified contributors to key reports and addressed outstanding gaps.
- Published a public summary of their eDNA biodiversity impact evaluation, with full results pending in a peer-reviewed article.
- Updated its forest cover and health dashboard and context information and initiated a social impact study in Brazil.
ISEAL Code Compliant members provide publicly available reports that give a comprehensive and accessible overview of a member's system.
ISEAL System Overview Forest Stewardship Council 2022