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Sustainable Palm Oil – Support Program:

GFS is now offering a support program for Sustainable Palm Oil for companies to develop management systems to meet international and national certification requirements such as RSPO or MSPO systems. The new program is designed to support companies to development management planning and operational procedures to manage palm oil plantations in line with RSPO or MSPO as applicable to the company.

Legal Verification Services & Wood Tracking Program:

GFS has revised the Legal Verification Services and Wood Tracking Program to better mitigate risk of unknown & illegal material entering the supply chain through a documented supplier risk assessment and site evaluation systems to verify wood products originate from a legal forest or plantation areas. The Wood Tracking Program is used to assess and monitor a formal Chain of Custody (CoC) system for manufacturers and trading companies to track the raw material used in wood products to a verified legal forest or plantation area. Legal Verification Service (LVS) provides for field evaluation of legal compliance for raw material that comes from forests or plantation areas that are considered not low risk for legality.

Companies participating in the GFS Wood Tracking Program must have a formal Chain of Custody system to trace material from purchasing through production and sale of wood products. Purchases of raw material and wood products must be vetted through a formal Risk Assessment that documents Low Risk of all material entering supply chain. The Risk Assessment consists of evaluating Country Level Risk, Species Risk & Operational Risk. Any material not considered low risk based on the Risk Assessment must undergo site evaluation for legal compliance based on the LVS Standard (GFS-WI-006-LVS-1 LVS Legal Requirement) or National / Local Standard for Legality. The GFS LVS & WTP is designed to support system for due care for the Lacey Act and due diligence to meet EU timber trade regulations, the Australian Illegal Logging Act and Japanese Goho Wood.

Sabah Timber Legality Monitoring:
GFS provides monitoring of legal verification of ALL long-term forest management and licensed harvest areas in Sabah, Malaysia based on compliance to the current Sabah Forest Legality Standard for forest operations developed by the Forestry Department Sabah (FDS). GFS has been monitoring the FLEGT Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) for forests in Sabah, Malaysia since May 2009 that is planned to continue through 2019 supported by the Sabah Forestry Department and Yayasan Sabah Foundation. FDS developed the Sabah Legality Standard for forestry operations (current version: Appendix A: Principles 1-4 dated 13 Nov 2013) for field evaluation of compliance as recorded in this document (GFS Ref. #: G161-001 v01 Nov 2014).

Sabah Timber Legality monitoring includes verification of legality through manufacturing and trade based on Appendix A: Principles 5&6 v02 Nov 2014. GFS conducts annual assessments for all manufacturing and export companies to document compliance to the Sabah Legality Standard for processing and trade.

Philippine Due Diligence System:
GFS has drafted a Guidebook that provides a methodology to assist the timber industry to establish a Chain of Custody coupled with a due diligence system for the market, as buyers want a single source of information that is consistent and reliable. The draft Guidebook sets out both a framework for the Philippine Industry & Trade to follow in regards to Chain of Custody system in the form of procedures that is integrated with a formal monitoring procedure that can be managed by the timber associations to check implementation by it’s members.

The draft Guidebook has been revised based on comments and will be field-tested on 10 companies in 3 regions of the Philippines. Results of the field test will be presented in regional and national workshops, to obtain input from stakeholders to revise the Philippine Guidebook and Due Diligence system for implementation by the Timber Industries.

Ghana Wood Tracking System:
GFS was part of a consortium led by Ata Marie to support the Ghana Government – Forestry Commission to develop a Wood Tracking System to meet their commitments in the FLEGT VPA and the EU Timber Regulations. The Ghana Wood Tracking System was developed as an integrated IT database project to capture forest inventory and tree harvesting data that can be tracked through production and export of finished wood products. The Wood Tracking System incorporates a verification system that includes both data and field evaluation of compliance with the Ghana Legality Standard. GFS provided the expertise for designing the verification system for the forests, wood processing and trade of wood products being used in the Ghana Wood Tracking System.