Certification for companies with multiple locations

If your organization has activities in more than one location, PEFC multi-site certification enables you to achieve PEFC chain of custody certification for all locations in one certification, without the need to certify each separate location individually.

For many companies, such as multinationals, franchises and companies with multiple production locations, and traders with many outlets, it can be an expensive and timely endeavour to gain PEFC chain of custody certification for every location.

This is why we developed PEFC multi-site certification, enabling all the different locations (or “sites”) of a company where PEFC chain of custody activities are carried out, to be covered by a single multi-site certificate. The sites can even be located in more than one country. 

How it works

You can decide which sites need to be covered by the multi-site certificate. The only condition is that the sites are linked through common ownership or management, or another organization link. The multi-site is managed and controlled by your “central office” – this could be your headquarters or another location. Whichever you choose, the central office must have a legal or contractual link with all sites, giving the central office the power to enforce corrective actions on the sites, when necessary.

Your central office has several responsibilities. Two of the most important ones are to provide necessary guidance and information to the sites, and to operate an internal auditing programme. You need to evaluate the correct implementation of the PEFC chain of custody by all sites on an annual basis, and additionally check any new sites that need to be included in the scope of your certification.

The central office is representing your organization in the certification process and will be the holder of the PEFC chain of custody certificate. All the sites will be listed on the certificate as participants. 

Benefits for your company

Multi-site certification offers you several advantages compared to individual certification of each separate location.

Efficient implementation

The central office has a better oversight of the performance of all different sites. Central management of the PEFC chain of custody allows for a more consistent and efficient implementation of the chain of custody across all sites.

Reduced costs

The external audit of the multi-site certificate covers a sample of all sites covered by the certificate. For example, the certification body may visit four sites out of a total of twelve. This reduces the overall cost of certification compared to a situation where each site would have its own individual certificate. 

The sampling of sites is possible because all the sites are covered by the internal audit that the central office annually performs. The central office is always part of the external audit, and the certification body will check the quality and results of the internal audit in that process.