Our history
Forest Stewardship Council®, FSC® was established in 1993 in Toronto (Canada) as an initiative of a group of environmental organizations, timber companies, traders, as well as forestry trade unions and other stakeholders. FSC’s establishment was preceded by a lengthy negotiation process that began in 1990 and covered the sphere of responsible forest management.
Forest Stewardship Council® is an international, non-governmental, non-profit membership organization.
Council members are grouped into three chambers (according to their interests): social, environmental, and economic. The principle of decision-making based on the consensus of the three chambers has become a cornerstone of FSC. This ensures taking balanced decisions and their acceptability for different interest groups.
FSC International Council was originally located in Oaxaca, Mexico. Timothy Sinnott became the first director of the organization. Since 2003, the Council has been located in Bonn, Germany. Kim Carstensen is currently the CEO of FSC.
In 1994, the first version of FSC founding standard, namely Principles and Criteria, was published. In 1996, the first certification body (Rainforest Alliance, program Smartwood) was accredited, which carried out the first certification of teak plantations in Indonesia, and the first products with FSC logo appeared on the market. In 1997, FSC recognized the National Initiative (Sweden), which developed the first national standard.
As a pioneer of forest certification, FSC has more than 25 years of expertise and experience in sustainable forest management, which is applied to promote responsible forest management in the world's forests, bringing together environmental, economic and social experts.