Pan-European Forest Certification (PEFC)

The Pan-European Forest Certification (PEFC) program was launched in 1999 by primarily small woodland owners across Europe who felt that the available certification options were too expensive for small-scale forestry operations. Recognizing the potential benefits of certification and an associated logo as valuable tools to communicate sustainable forest management practices to customers and consumers, PEFC was established to award a universal logo to organizations certified by national programs that are accredited by PEFC.

In order for a national or regional SFM program to be considered for the PEFC logo, it must demonstrate that organizations certified under the program meet the following 6 criteria:

  1. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of forest resources and their contribution to global carbon cycles;
  2. Maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality;
  3. Maintenance and encouragement of productive functions of forests (wood and non-wood);
  4. Maintenance, conservation and appropriate enhancement of biological diversity in forest ecosystems;
  5. Maintenance and appropriate enhancement of protective functions in forest management (notably soil and water);
  6. Maintenance of other socio-economic functions and conditions.

Furthermore, the development of the criteria must be done with the following guiding principles:

  • sustainable forest management as a goal;
  • credibility;
  • non-deceptiveness;
  • open access and non-discrimination;
  • cost-effectiveness;
  • participation that seeks to involve all relevant interested parties;
  • transparency;
  • subsidiarity;
  • voluntariness.

The PEFC system can be considered a framework, or 'headquarters', that accredits existing programs as conforming with the PEFC principles and criteria for SFM, and allowing them to use a common logo. This allows for regional and/or national SFM schemes to cater to their unique ecological and ownership patterns, while PEFC provides a central system and logo to accredit them (mutual recognition) in order to avoid confusion at the customer and consumer level. Although it is called a Pan-European program, there is indication that programs outside Europe (such as CAN/CSA-809) could be considered for recognition and the use of the logo.

April 2002