The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) through independent third-party certification.
Forest area: 11 549 732 ha
No. of forest owners: 43 138
No. of forest contractors: 3 418
PEFC-certification globally
Forest area: 275 Mio. ha
No. of forest owners: > 750 000
SE Certification – an umbrella for contractor group certification
SE Certifiering AB is an organisation for group certification of forest contractors under the Swedish PEFC Standard. Base for the activities are the current versions of the
PEFC SWE Standard and the ISO 14001:2004 standard. The activities are due to an annual audit by an accredited certification body. Accreditation is given by SWEDAC, a Swedish state agency.
At the end of 2016 SE Certification had 822 forest contractors associated with an active PEFC group certificate. The contractors are subject to a high degree of control. Initially, a pre-audit is carried out, every year all contractors must deliver a ‘self-audit’ and furthermore, internal audits are carried out on a regularly and random base. Certain internal audits are also risk-based.
All observed irregularities are recorded and followed up. During 2016 in total some 1,400 discrepancies from the PEFC standard were registered. Since the start of SMF Certification in 2010, in total some 10,000 discrepancies have been registered. This implies a giant rise of quality for the forest contractor trade. If a forest contractor do not take measures to fulfill the PEFC standard, he will be expelled. In total, 50 contractors have lost their certificate throughout the years.
As support for the forest contractors SE Certification offers a wide variety of courses, templates and consulting activities.
SE Certification has an open dialogue with both the associated contractors, their clients and other representatives of the forestry trade and the public.
