Forest Certifications and the EUDR: What the Regulations Require and the Role of FSC and PEFC
How do FSC and PEFC work?
Both systems are mainly structured into two types of certification:
Forest Management (FM)
Evaluates whether forests are managed according to environmental, social, and economic sustainability principles. This includes aspects such as biodiversity conservation, compliance with applicable legislation, forest management planning, and respect for local communities and workers.
Chain of Custody (CoC)
Applies to companies that transform, process, or trade forest products. Its objective is to ensure the traceability of certified material throughout the supply chain through internal control systems that verify the origin of the material, manage certified volumes, and prevent mixing with non-certified material.
These certifications, through independent audits and recognized standards, have contributed to strengthening responsible forest management practices and building trust in the origin of forest products. However, they were mainly designed as voluntary standards aimed at promoting good practices, not as specific mechanisms to comply with regulatory requirements such as those required by the EUDR Regulation.
What exactly does the EUDR require?
The EUDR Regulation establishes that operators must demonstrate that the products they place on the European market are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation after 31 December 2020.
To do so, the EUDR requires the implementation of a due diligence system, which includes three main elements:
Information gathering: Including geolocation of production plots through geographic coordinates, as well as data on species, volume, and country of origin.
Risk assessment: Considering factors such as the country of production (classified as low, standard, or high risk), supply chain complexity, and other contextual elements.
Risk mitigation: When the identified risk cannot be considered negligible.
This is the key point, as responsibility lies directly with the operator placing the product on the European market, who must submit a due diligence statement.
Forest certification and regulatory compliance
Certifications provide relevant information, improve traceability, and help reduce certain risks within the supply chain. However, they do not replace the due diligence system required by the EUDR.
It is important to highlight that both FSC and PEFC have developed complementary modules aligned with the regulation requirements, but they remain supporting tools. Legal responsibility is not transferred, and having forest certification is not equivalent to EUDR compliance, as this does not exist as a label but as a process.
A practical reflection
When analyzing the sector, the main challenge is usually not the lack of certification but the belief that having it already covers all regulatory requirements.
Certifications such as FSC and PEFC remain valuable tools that have contributed to improving forest management, traceability, and transparency in supply chains. However, the current regulatory context requires going one step further: integrating existing certifications into a compliance system, where they can help reduce risks and provide relevant information within the due diligence process.
In this sense, the new implementation timeline offers additional time to prepare. The question now is how to use it to build systems that will truly work when the regulation is fully enforced.
Author
Paola Monzón
Forestry Engineer | Sustainability and EUDR Compliance Consultant
Forest Engineer and MSc in Terrestrial Ecology and Biodiversity Management, with experience in the design, coordination, and implementation of environmental projects focused on ecological restoration, ecosystem conservation, sustainable rural development, and carbon footprint assessment. She has worked in intercultural contexts, integrating gender and sustainability approaches. She currently provides consulting services on traceability and technical verification for compliance with the EUDR Regulation.
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