PEFC lifts suspension of Swiss Q-label

The PEFC Council today lifted the suspension of the Swiss Q-label forest certification system. As of today, the Swiss Q-label certified forest area is again endorsed by PEFC and the wood can be labelled with the PEFC logo and claims. The lifting of the suspension is the result of the Q-label?s adoption of changes ensuring compliance with PEFC requirements.

"Safeguarding the consistently high standards of all PEFC endorsed systems around the world is of utmost importance to the PEFC Council", said Mr Ben Gunneberg, Secretary General of the PEFC Council. "We are therefore delighted that the Swiss system has made the necessary changes and that we are now able to reinstate it as fully endorsed system."

To bring its wood tracking system into PEFC compliance, the Q-label system replaced its previous standard with PEFC's international Chain of Custody standard. Swiss Chain of Custody holders who are still certified to the previous standard and who wish to be PEFC recognized, therefore need to be re-certified to the new international Chain of Custody standard.

The PEFC Council suspended the Swiss Q-Label Wood Certification Scheme in November 2005 for non-compliance with three PEFC requirements. These were compliance with the international PEFC chain of custody rules; provision of a publicly available certification report summary of the certification results and information from external parties being used as evidence in the forest certification process.

For more information please contact:
Mr Oliver Scholz, Communications Manager PEFC Council
Tel. +352 26 25 90 59
Mr Urs Amstutz, Director PEFC Switzerland
Tel. +41 32 625 88 10

Editor Notes

Forest Certification
Forest certification is a process, which provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that the wood used in the products comes from sustainably managed forests. Sustainably managed forests are those whose management implements performance standards based on internationally agreed environmental, social and economical requirements.

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes)
PEFC is a framework for the mutual recognition of credible national or regional forest certification schemes that have been developed based on internationally recognised requirements for sustainable forest management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification umbrella organisation covering national schemes from all over the world, delivering hundreds of millions of tonnes of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from 187 million hectares of certified forests. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector, governments, trade associations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.

Swiss Q-label certification system
More than 300,000 hectares of Swiss forests are certified under the Q-label system. Due to the adoption of a new Chain of Custody standard for the Q-label system, there are currently no PEFC recognized Chain of Custody certificates in Switzerland.