Forests

Assessing Certification Systems and Schemes

The WWF/World Bank Global Forest Alliance (Alliance) has published a tool for assessing the comprehensiveness of forest certification systems. The Forest Certification Assessment Guide (Guide) will help determine whether systems for certifying the sustainable management of commercial forests meet Alliance criteria. These criteria are an important factor guiding decisions by the Alliance partners in their support for sustainable forest management projects.

Formerly known as the Questionnaire for Assessing the Comprehensiveness of Certification Systems/Schemes, the tool is the culmination of three years of testing, refinement, and external consultation. WWF and the World Bank - working together under the Alliance - have comprehensively simplified and redesigned the Guide, structuring it around widely used existing frameworks such as ISO, as well as both organizations' criteria for sustainable forest management.

The Alliance plans to use the Guide to assist the development of forest certification systems in various countries. The results of these field applications will ultimately guide World Bank and WWF programs and policies supporting the development and quality of certification standards and systems, and addressing related issues such as legality and chain of custody. Also, the Guide should prove useful to public agencies in various regions of the world in the process of developing procurement guidelines requiring a clear description of sustainable forest management and legality.

The links below will take you to the Guide, and to correspondence with external reviewers who reviewed the Guide during its development.

• Forest Certification Assessment Guide - English
• Forest Certification Assessment Guide - Russian
• Forest Certification Assessment Guide - Portuguese
• Letter to PEFC - Sept. 2004
• Detailed responses to PEFC comments - Sept. 2004