ADVICE-40-004-23 V2-0 Evaluation of contractors against the FSC core labour requirements Normative reference FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1: -
Clause 1.6, Clause 13.2, Clause 13.4 Terms and definitions: ‘Scope’
Approval date 19 July 2024 Effective date 1 November 2024 Transition end date 31 December 2025 Scope This advice note applies to all Chain of Custody (CoC) certificate holders and CoC applicants that outsource activities within the scope of their certification to non-FSC-CoC-certified contractors. Terms and Definitions
Audit: systematic, independent, and documented process for obtaining objective evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the audit criteria are fulfilled (Source: ISO 19011:2018) Contractor: Individual, company, or other legal entity contracted by an organization for any activities under the scope of an FSC CoC certificate. (Source: FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1) First-party audit: an assessment that is performed within the organization by their own auditing resource or a person acting on behalf of the organization. First-party audits are often called internal audits. NOTE: In the context of this advice note, the audit would be carried out by, for example, an employee of the contractor or a consultant contracted by the contractor. FSC approved verification schemes: Third-party verification schemes recognized as partially or fully equivalent to the requirements entailed under FSC core labour requirements in <FSC-STD-40-004 V31 Chain of Custody Certification> and <FSC-STD-20-011 V4-2 Chain of Custody Evaluations>, based on <PSU-PRO-10-003 V1-1 Procedure for equivalence assessment of verification schemes against the FSC core labour requirements>. (Source: FSC-ADVICE-40-004-24) Organization: The person or entity holding or applying for certification and therefore responsible for demonstrating conformity to the applicable requirements upon which FSC certification is based.
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