I am commonly asked, “Do I need to be COC certified to sell FSC product to a LEED project?” or “As a contractor how do I know that the FSC wood products that I am buying are actually FSC?” These are very common questions that are part of the process of developing a more responsible, accountable and credible green products industry. This three part series will explore why Chain-of-Custody (COC) certification programs were developed and their importance in the marketplace; who needs to be certified; and how a company would go about earning an FSC Chain-of-Custody certificate.

The concept of certifying that products or service providers are legitimate and able to actually provide the services that they claim goes back decades. The need for end-users to be confident of a company's product claim is very important to ensuring that the customer gets what the customer wants. The history of our country is full of instances when the people and government required more oversight of businesses to ensure that end-users were being protected and were well informed about the products they are buying.

For close to 100 years the US federal government, through a number of different agencies, has inspected meat and poultry processing facilities to ensure that practices meet the law and the food is prepared in a healthy manner. These inspections result in a product claim that is quite common in the marketplace, “USDA Approved.” This provides a baseline level of assurance that rules are being followed and laws are not being broken, but it does not reward those who are leaders in their industry for going above and beyond.

The flip-side of government mandated inspections that attempt to keep an entire industry above a minimum set of regulations (the stick) is an independent voluntary certification program that, if accepted by the market, will provide economic benefits to the leadership companies for exceeding the market's expectation (the carrot). This is where the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification program fits in.

FSC is an independent organization that sets standards and accredits third-party auditing agencies to carry out forest management and chain-of-custody certification audits. FSC was first to the market in the early '90s and it benefits from a broad membership structure.

Since FSC's inception many other forest certification systems have been developed to compete with FSC. This competitive ‘certified wood' industry has required all systems to improve their standards to provide the end-users with continued assurance that the industry would rather participate in a voluntary, market-based system for promoting sound forestry over government regulation. An analogous situation has developed within the building industry over the past 10 years and the US Green Building Council's LEED program has been the leader in that industry.

Some of the initial concerns about these emerging certification programs, whether it's for forest products or buildings, are that they cost money, they often promote new concepts that are foreign to business, and there is a learning curve to making profits. These concerns have driven many in the forest products manufacturing and distribution sectors to clamor for a one size fits all eco-label for all third-party certified wood products. The same proponents of this approach regularly speak of the need for more ‘free enterprise' in North America.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, free enterprise is defined as, “the freedom of private business to organize and operate for profit in a competitive system without interference by government beyond regulation necessary to protect public interest and keep the national economy in balance.” If these opponents to an open, competitive certified wood market were such advocates of ‘free enterprise' they would not be looking for a one size fits all solution that resembles government intervention or a baseline standard. They would instead embrace the new business concepts and create new business alliances for future growth.

With the expansion of the green and eco labeled building products industry and the very serious potential for end-users to become skeptical about product claims, it is critical that the forest certification systems continue to compete, to improve themselves, and to allow end-users to make the choice as to which products they buy.