The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is under fire after ENGOs warned that a new revision to its internal guidance on how it defines a company’s “corporate group” could clear the way for Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and APRIL to rejoin the FSC’s certification without fully remedying past deforestation and land conflicts.
Mongabay reports that the FSC has updated its approach to applying the Accountability Framework Initiative’s “common control” standard, which determines when all subsidiaries, affiliates or suppliers of a certified company must adhere to the same environmental and social safeguards.
“This work considers the learnings to date on identifying and concluding the scope of the corporate group and builds on the strengths of the [AFi’s] definition,” FSC told Mongabay. “This is not the same as reviewing the definition itself.”
Under the FSC’s Policy for Association and Remedy Framework, an entire corporate group may be disassociated for destructive practices—ranging from illegal logging to human rights abuses—committed by any member. Companies that lose certification must then address harms across their entire network, not merely at a single offending site, before reapplying for FSC certification.
Campaigners warn that any narrowing of the scope could allow both to exclude problematic affiliates from scrutiny, effectively letting them rebrand under the FSC’s “green” label without fully addressing past violations.
“Given the centrality of the corporate group definition to the remedy process, this creates a real risk that companies could exploit the process to narrow accountability,” said Angus MacInnes, project officer at the Forest Peoples Programme, who spoke exclusively to Mongabay. “This would undermine remedies for communities harmed by APRIL, APP, and other major forestry conglomerates.”
According to Mongabay, participants in the process say the consultation was heavily skewed toward industry interests. Only three environmental NGOs—Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and the Forest Peoples Programme—were formally invited to comment, alongside numerous private-sector actors. Indigenous representatives, government regulators and independent experts were largely excluded. The FSC enlisted PT Inovasi Digital, a consultancy arm of the nonprofit Earthqualizer Foundation, to gather stakeholder feedback via surveys and interviews.
According to MacInnes, the survey questions centred on how corporations “defend their reputation” and “educate” affiliates to comply with sustainability rules—topics he argues favour corporate narratives over robust accountability. NGOs also reported that the initial draft misrepresented their views, forcing them to submit revised sections. The final summary now acknowledges that “the original report’s findings have been rejected by NGOs, and an alternative section has been prepared by the NGOs to better represent their views.”
And whilst the FSC insists it has only clarified the application of the AFi definition rather than altering it, campaigners remain unconvinced. “The statement leaves open how much latitude FSC has in adapting or narrowing the application,” MacInnes said, warning that purported “best practices” could lower the bar for holding affiliates accountable.
FSC defends its decision to periodically review the corporate-group scope, citing “shifting ownership and control in forestry operations” and the need to incorporate new lessons: “New best practices or lessons learned on how to determine that scope would be applied when reviews take place, in such a way that is consistent and comprehensible for companies and stakeholders,” the FSC said. However, with APP and APRIL pushing to seek readmission, the FSC’s credibility is at stake. “We will have to see the updated guidance to determine whether this has been the case,” MacInnes said. “Let’s hope FSC share a version publicly as soon as possible.”
- Please note: This is an extract from an article that appeared on Mongabay’s website on Tuesday. For more information, click here to read the full article.
