The PEFC Council (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1999 which promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification. The PEFC provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that they are promoting the sustainable management of forests.

PEFC is a global umbrella organisation for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes developed in a multi-stakeholder process. These national schemes build upon the inter-governmental processes for the promotion of sustainable forest management, a series of on-going mechanisms supported by 149 governments in the world covering 85% of the world's forest area.

PEFC has in its membership 34 independent national forest certification systems of which 23 to date have been through a rigorous assessment process involving public consultation and the use of independent assessors to provide the assessments on which mutual recognition decisions are taken by the membership. These 23 systems account for more than 200 million hectares of certified forests producing millions of tonnes of certified timber to the market place making PEFC the world's largest certification system. The other national members schemes are at various stages of development and are working towards mutual recognition under the PEFC processes.

The PEFC Council has the following main activities:

	Elements of credible forest certification schemes    PEFC forest certification and product labelling covers the following steps: Standards and rules developed in an open and transparent way Forests certified by an independent third-party organisation Wood traced from certified forests to the end consumer by chain-of-custody tracking. PEFC labelled products supporting an environmentally positive choice