How to guarantee traceability and sustainable use of forest materials
PEFC – CoC (Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification – Chain of Custody) is a voluntary certification to ensure the origin and traceability of products from sustainably managed forests.
This certification applies to all forestry material producers, guaranteeing the origin of raw materials such as sawdust, building and carpentry materials, packaging, pallets, panels, timber traders and distributors, paper and transformer manufacturers, editors, printers, furniture and furnishing producers, stationery manufacturers, and non-wood forest product producers. Thanks to the PEFC certificate and through the chain of custody, consumers can identify products from the forests managed in a sustainable way.
The PEFC-Coc certification issued by RINA helps producers meet standards for demonstrating the sustainable origin and traceability of their forest products by supporting environmentally friendly choices.
Thanks to the technical expertise in forestry services, we are accredited by ACCREDIA (Italian Accreditation Body) for PEFC Custody Chain Certification. RINA operates in the world through its subsidiaries RINA Simtex - Organismul de Certificare S.r.l., RINA POLAND Sp. z o.o., RINA (Shanghai) Quality Certification Co. Ltd.
The main steps in the certification process include:
- Submission of the certification application to RINA
- Review of the certification application and definition of the offer
- Opening of the contract, in case the offer is accepted, and planning of evaluation activities
- On-site verification at the company's production site(s) and, in the case of subcontractors, on-site audit of the sampled subcontractors
- Review of all information and results related to the assessment
- In the event of a positive outcome, issue of the certificate (valid for 5 years)
- Annual verification for the certification maintenance.
Only those falling within the scope of certification may be labelled
Currently, the European Union has not recognised any forestry standards as a guarantor of compliance with the Regulation, so certification is a risk-mitigation element within the due diligence system but does not dispense with its implementation
You can check if your suppliers are PEFC certified and find new PEFC certified suppliers via PEFC certification database
PEFC was founded in 1999 in response to the specific requirements of small and family forest owners as an international umbrella organization providing independent assessment, endorsement and recognition of national forest certification systems. More than two decades later, PEFC is one of the largest forest certification systems in the world.
