PEFC invites companies to trial cross site credit accounting

25 July 2014 News

PEFC is offering companies holding a PEFC Chain of Custody certificate the opportunity to take part in an upcoming pilot study into the implementation of cross site credit accounting.

The PEFC Chain of Custody standard (PEFC ST 2002:2013) currently allows certified organizations implementing the percentage based chain of custody method to collect credits for procured PEFC certified material and to transfer these credits to PEFC Controlled Sources within the same defined product group.

However, the PEFC Chain of Custody has always limited the definition of this product group to one production site, and credits can therefore generally not be transferred from one site of a multi-site certificate to another, also known as cross site credit accounting.

With demand rising for the transfer of credits from one site of a multi-site certificate to another, in 2012 and 2013 PEFC International, in cooperation with PEFC Spain, conducted a pilot study on cross site credit accounting with a Spanish certificate holder.  During this pilot study the certificate holder was allowed to transfer volume credits between the Spanish sites of its international multi-site Chain of Custody certification.

Based on the findings and the analysis of this pilot study, PEFC established a Task Force within its Chain of Custody and Labeling Working Group, with the task of revisiting the requirements of the PEFC Chain of Custody standard on the percentage based method, product groups and cross site credit accounting.

In order to gain further insight to the feasibility of cross site credit accounting, PEFC is expanding its pilot study in order to enable additional companies to temporarily implement cross site credit accounting.

For applicants to become eligible as pilot project partners, the following conditions needs to be met:

1. The applying organisation is holding a multi-site chain of custody certificate and is a “multisite organisation” in the sense of PEFC ST 2002:2013, Appendix 2, clause 2.3 a.  Producer groups are not eligible as pilot project partners.
2. The applying organisation provides a detailed description of the existing chain of custody system of the multisite organisation, focussing in particular product groups and sites, and a description of the envisaged pilot project system.
3. The sites which should be covered by the pilot project are clearly defined and within the same geographic region (e.g. Europe, North America, South America, Asia).
4. Evidence for the organisation’s support of increasing PEFC certified area (e.g. activities in a specific region).
5. Commitment of the applicant and its certification body to submit to the PEFC Secretariat the certification report, explicitly covering the aspect of cross site volume accounting, at the latest four weeks after the next certification, recertification or surveillance audit.
6. Accepted pilot project partners shall pay a non-recurring administration fee of CHF 1000.

Interested companies can submit free form applications covering the above to christian.kammer@pefc.org.