FSC and its assurance partner, Assurance Services International (ASI), jointly organized a series of four training and calibration workshops for FSC-accredited certification bodies in Türkiye, China, Indonesia and India. The workshops aimed to empower certification bodies and auditors to better validate the core labour requirements provided in FSC’s chain of custody standard.
These workshops were organized to address and implement recommendations from a study conducted by ASI on potential risks for the verification and realization of core labour requirements in FSC’s certification system for these four prioritized countries. Read more about ASI’s study here.
Over 100 auditors attended the workshops across all four countries. In the feedback we received from the participants, they indicated that they found the workshop to be very interesting, engaging and useful.
The main objectives for conducting these workshops were:
- To increase awareness among certification bodies/auditors working in these countries on the existing legal gaps and potential violations of core labour requirements.
- To create basic knowledge of checkpoints during the audits and identify risk areas at certificate holder level, as well as the expectations of ASI and FSC of auditors when verifying core labour requirements.
- To create an open and transparent space to discuss verification challenges and solutions.
- To ensure unified understanding among certification bodies/auditors on the meaning of the various normative provisions around core labour requirements and their verification methodology.
The dates of the workshops and FSC representatives who were present at the sessions are mentioned below:
25-Oct @Türkiye
30-Oct@China
1-Nov @Indonesia
3-Nov @India
FSC pays a lot of attention to labour rights. All certificate holders (both forest management and chain of custody) have to conform with these requirements. Independent auditors have to verify that certificate holders conform with these requirements, which are applied to all countries and regions.
The four core labour requirements in FSC’s chain of custody standard are:
- Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining
- Elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour
- Effective abolition of child labour
- Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Based on the evaluation of this year’s trainings, FSC considers offering similar trainings to other continents in 2024.