soil-association-certification-forestry-tornator-PEFC.png

Stakeholder Consultation Guidance

Before visiting forest sites, we contact a range of individuals and organisations that may wish to comment on a forest manager’s activities.

Our consultation with you should not replace any communication which may normally take place between yourself and the forest manager – you should raise your concerns with the forest manager first, as issues can often be resolved if forest managers are aware of them. If you are unable to do this please let us know your rationale. Positive feedback from stakeholders is always welcome.

A summary of issues raised and how they have been addressed will be included in our audit report (all reference to specific consultees will be excluded from the report and comments may be in confidence if so specified).

All reports will be publicly available on the FSC^® online database or on the Soil Association Certification Forestry website, within three months of a certification decision (with the exception of reports from Pre-Assessments).

What are we interested in?

Individuals and organisations

Are you aware of any of the following?

Problems with existing permissive or traditional forest uses
Unreasonable refusal of access
Problems regarding hunting
Outstanding disputes over the conversion of forest land
Evidence that legal or customary tenure, or use rights of local communities, are not sustained
Lack of reasonable effort to employ and train workers from local communities
Cases when employees have been deterred from joining unions or negotiating collectively
Indigenous or traditional peoples living in or near the forest area
Local communities who rely on the forest for subsistence needs

Statutory bodies

Are you aware of any of the following?

Outstanding claims of legal non-compliance, or evidence that the relevant codes of practice, guidelines and agreements are not being followed
Problems with consultation on revisions to management plans
Inadequate consultation regarding sites and features of special cultural significance
Significant negative environmental impact resulting from forest management

We do...

Proactively engage with key stakeholders to contribute to consultation
Treat stakeholder comments in confidence
Clarify the objectives and limits of the certification process to ensure expectations on all sides are realistic
Use comments to inform the audit process and objectively evaluate those comments against the relevant FSC standard
Ask for the forest managers perspective on issues raised (treating comments in confidence)
Acknowledge stakeholder feedback and comments
Include comments received and explain how they were evaluated in the public audit report
Inform stakeholders when and where the public audit report will be made available.

We do not...

Act as a mediator between the applicant/certificate holder & stakeholders in resolving potential and on-going issues
Engage with issues that have been assessed as being beyond the scope of the certification standard – we can record them for information, but our role is to assess against FSC standards
Take sides: our role is to carry out an objective evaluation to determine whether or not the forest management meets FSC standard requirements

Submit your comments

QMS Code: CA-FM-007b-01 May 2017

The Soil Association Certification Policy for Stakeholder Engagement (IP-FM-006) is available below. We always try to operate in an open and effective way and will do our best to address any concerns as quickly as possible. However, if you wish to make use of our complaints and dispute resolution system, please follow our guidance policy, Dispute Resolution Procedures (IP-GEN-004), which can be found here. If you are not satisfied with action taken through this system, you can take your concern to FSC or PEFC for their consideration.

Certification Policy for Stakeholder Engagement

QMS Code: GM-FM-003-01 May 2017