PEFC Council joins International Accreditation Forum

The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC) has just been accepted as an association member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF). Through its membership the PEFC Council is now part of, and will work constructively with other, IAF members such as official national accreditation bodies, certification bodies and standard setting bodies, to assure businesses and their customers, that accredited certification bodies are competent to carry out the work they undertake.

Mr Ben Gunneberg, PEFC Council Secretary General said, "The IAF's goal is Certified once - accepted everywhere. This goal is fully supported by the PEFC Council. We will now actively participate in IAF's accreditation harmonisation processes to ensure that accredited forest certification certificates issued in one part of the world are recognised everywhere else in the world."

Through joining IAF, the PEFC Council has committed itself to continue its promotion of the common application of requirements for certification and accreditation as internationally recognised by both IAF and ISO (International Standard Organisation).

The international rules defined by ISO require that standard setting, certification and accreditation must be fully separated. Our membership in IAF, as a standards setting organisation now creates the final link between these three tasks for the forest certification world. "Our membership will enable closer co-operation and harmonisation between these three tasks in a way that will increase the confidence of businesses and their customers using accredited third party certifications in the forestry sector" said Mr Gunneberg.

Ends

For more information contact:
Mr. Jaroslav Tymrak, PEFC Council - Tel +352 26 25 90 59
Mr Ben Gunneberg, PEFC Council - Tel +352 26 25 90 59

Editor Notes

IAF (International Accreditation Forum) www.iaf.nu
IAF is an international association representing national accreditation bodies and other organisations that have agreed to work together on a worldwide basis to achieve common trade facilitation objectives. IAF is a major world forum for developing the principles and practices for the conduct of conformity assessment that will deliver the confidence needed for market acceptance. IAF acts through the accreditation of those bodies that carry out certification of management systems, products, personnel, and/or other similar conformity assessment programs.

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) www.pefc.org
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 over 52 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.

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 forest. Sustainably managed forest are those whose management implements performance standards based on internationally agreed environmental