This CoC standard is for companies manufacturing materials and products including sawn wood(e.g. beams, planks); chip and fibre products (e.g. pulp, paper, chip board) assembled products (e.g. furniture, plywood, veneer). The CoC standard  can also be applied to companies manufacturing non-timber forest products (e.g. Brazil nuts). It has been developed to allow companies supplying and manufacturing FSC-certified material and products to:

· Control the sourcing of their FSC-certified and reclaimed material;

· Demonstrate to their customers, whether business, government or end consumer,

that they operate responsible sourcing policies, and meet FSC requirements for the

control of non-FSC certified wood/fibre;

· Use the FSC trademarks on-product to promote their products.

A key objective of this CoC standard is to provide a pathway for companies to both enter the FSC system and/or increase the proportion of FSC certified material to 100%.

Compliance with this CoC standard provides a consistent, international basis for claims about the sourcing of wood/fibre material and products. It thus provides the basis for independent, third party verification suitable for demonstrating compliance with government or private procurement policies and specifications such as the EU Ecolabel scheme for furniture, or the U.S. Green Building Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.

Compliance with this CoC standard is a prerequisite for the use of any FSC trademarks onproduct.

This CoC standard is designed to supersede and subsequently replace the requirements of the current ‘FSC policy for percentage-based claims’ (May 2000), and the requirements of Part 3.6 of the FSC Accreditation Manual (February 2002).

The CoC standard specifies requirements for chain of custody and labelling for FSC “pure” products; FSC “mixed” products and FSC “recycled” products. It provides the company systems requirements and requirements for eligibility for on-product labelling with FSC’s onproduct labels. A range of on-product labelling options has been provided. The options enable truth in labelling principles to be met whilst facilitating the expansion and reach of FSC certified products in the marketplace, especially for products from the South.