The Swedish PEFC System has become the latest national forest certification system to seek PEFC endorsement for the fourth time.
Stakeholders globally are invited to provide feedback on its compliance with PEFC International’s Sustainability Benchmarks by 29 July 2016.
Sweden was one of the first countries to achieve the PEFC endorsement of its national system back in 2000, and joins Finland (now re-endorsed) and Germany as the only other countries to submit a system for re-endorsement for a third time. There are now nearly 11.4 million hectares of PEFC-certified forests in the country.
PEFC International ensures that national systems are revised regularly in multi-stakeholder processes by limiting the validity of endorsements to five years, after which they can apply for re-endorsement to continue benefitting from PEFC recognition.
As part of the endorsement process, PEFC seeks comments and feedback from all interested parties to ensure full compliance of the national systems with PEFC’s Sustainability Benchmark during a 60-day global public consultation.
All comments received during the global public consultation will provide valuable information for the third-party assessor in determining whether the respective national system is in compliance with international requirements.
http://pefc.org/news-a-media/general-sfm-news/2133-sweden-seeks-pefc-re-endorsement-public-consultation-open