Edward S. Kocjancic, Inc. has been practicing responsible forestry for over 40 years.  With our FSC certification in 2000, we can now demonstrate to our clients, customers and all conscientious consumers alike, that through third party evaluation, we can be assured that the forest products we produce come from well managed forests.

What is Forest Management Certification?

Forest management operations that meet the principles and criteria for environmental, economic and social standards of the Forest Stewardship Council are awarded the certification seal. Candidates for certification undergo a detailed on-the-ground assessment that includes input from all interested parties, species inventories, management plan reviews, and forest inspections. Forest management certification is valid for five years subject to successful completion of annual audits.

What is the relationship between the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Rainforest Alliance (RA) and SmartWood?

The FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not for profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. It provides standard setting, trademark assurance and accreditation services for companies and organizations interested in responsible forestry. Accreditation services are the procedure which gives formal recognition that a certification body is competent and conforms with the FSC requirements of an accreditation system.

Products carrying the FSC label are independently certified to assure consumers that they come from forests that are managed to meet the social, economic and ecological needs of present and future generations.

The Rainforest Alliance is an independent, not-for-profit organization that is accredited by the FSC as a Certification Body. RA implements FSC Forest Management (FM) and Chain of Custody(CoC) certification evaluations.

SmartWood is the certification program of RA. SmartWood program staff implement the FM and CoC evaluations. Many years ago RA adopted the name SmartWood for its forestry certification programs. FSC certificates issued by RA are provided with a certificate code based on the SmartWood name, e.g., SW-COC-00XXXX.

FSC certificate holders that are certified by RA are given access to the RA certified seal to use in conjunction with the FSC logo.

How does the certification process work?
RA’s SmartWood program awards FSC certification based on audit results and issues certificates for five-year periods. The first audit, called the assessment, is the most rigorous, as it determines the initial decision to certify. The assessment is followed by four annual audits. The entire process is efficient, thorough and transparent.

The Assessment includes the following procedures.
For Forest Management and Non-Timber Forest Products Certification:

1. The candidate operation fills out an application to be certified.
2. RA creates a budget (the application is not binding until the budget is approved by the candidate operation), and a service agreement is signed by the candidate operation and RA.
3. A multi-disciplinary team (usually a forester, an ecologist and a community relations specialist) conducts field work to assess the candidate operation's performance, using the FSC's regionally adapted standards as the "measuring stick."
4. The RA team designs and implements a stakeholder consultation process that seeks outside input on the candidate operation's performance, including input from local communities, environmental groups, government, and scientific researchers.
5. After consultation and field work, the RA's SmartWood team produces an assessment report.
6. The assessment report is reviewed both by the candidate company and independent peer reviewers (who are selected by RA).
7. Based on the field work, stakeholder consultation and peer review inputs, a certification decision is made.
8. Annual audits are conducted, starting approximately one year after the original certificate is issued. Audits are to ensure that the certified operation continues to comply with the FSC standards and that any weaknesses identified in the original assessment or previous audits have been addressed.

What is Group Certification?

Group certification is a process by which multiple landowners, forest managers or processors are certified under one FSC / RA Certified certificate. The cost of getting certified as part of a group is typically considerably lower than the cost of traditional certification. The group entity may be an individual resource manager (forest manager), a cooperative, an owner association, a forest management company, a governmental resource agency or other legal entity that can provide the appropriate forest management system and administrative oversight to a group of landowners and/or managers. Often, an individual landowner can join an existing group.

Learn more about Forest Management Group Certification or Chain-of-Custody Group Certification.