During the pandemic FSC, alongside every organization in the world, had to make essential adjustments to prioritize the safety of certificate holders, auditors and staff. In many ways the pandemic was a catalyst for FSC to adopt a more technology-first approach to the way it operates, including the introduction of a remote auditing method used to ensure a continuation of audits of FSC certificate holders.
Remote auditing became possible because auditors made use of available communication means such as video conferencing, telephone calls, and other digital tools to gain a perspective on what was happening in the forest.
However, even before the pandemic, FSC was already looking into the topic of remote auditing and exploring possibilities to make use of technology to make forest management evaluations more efficient and cost-effective.
The technical working group responsible for the revision of the FSC-STD-20-007 standard, which is the document that regulates the forest management evaluations by certification bodies, has looked into the topic of remote auditing and proposed different solutions for the revision process.
Some members have expressed concern over the use of the remote auditing method as they believe it will decrease the quality of an audit including the risk of interference in sampling, a lesser chance of representative/culturally appropriate stakeholder consultations, as well as a difficulty in establishing a trusting relationship with some stakeholders.
To address these concerns, FSC and the working group are proposing to only allow full-remote audits for Small, Low Intensity Model Forests and community forests. For all the other organizations, at least one qualified auditor needs to go on-site. The certification body must comply with certain eligibility criteria to confirm if the remote audit method can be safely applied to parts of an evaluation. This means, there would always be at least one qualified auditor visiting the company to assess the things that are relevant to be checked on-site. It is important to note that FSC is not moving to a remote auditing system but instead will leverage the use of technology with clear safeguards for specific parts of the evaluation.
What’s next?
The technical working group has completed its revision of the forest management evaluation standard which includes proposed changes regarding audit methods and other relevant aspects such as reporting requirements, the use of risk-based approaches in forest management evaluations, sampling and others. Now we await to see if the standard revision is approved.