Viet Nam Forest Certification Office (VFCO) in collaboration with the Vietnam Administration of Forestry (VNForest) assigned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to assume the prime responsibility for performing the task “Capacity building training for enterprises on chain of custody of wood and wood-based products (CoC) according to the standards of the  Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) according to Decision No. 1298/QD-BNN-KHCN dated April 12, 2022 under the Program on Productivity and Product Quality under Decision No. 1322/QD-TTg dated August 31, 2020 of the Prime Minister.

To carry out the assigned tasks, in November 2022, VFCO organized two training courses on “Guidelines for the implementation of the PEFC CoC Chain of Custody Standard and the Due Diligence system” in Hanoi and Thu Dau Mot City, Binh Duong province. Participating in two training courses, more than 80 participants were representatives of local management agencies, related associations, cooperative alliances, certification bodies, wood, and wood-based processing enterprises.

At the training, VFCO experts introduced: 1) PEFC ST Standard 2002:2020 – Chain of Custody of Forest and Tree-Based Products – Requirements; 2) PEFC ST Standard 2001:2020 – PEFC Trademarks rules – Requirements; 3) VFCS/PEFC ST 1008:2022 – Guidelines for using VFCS labels and 4) Step-by-step instructions for PEFC CoC and PEFC DDS implementation. The trainees and lecturers had a lively discussion about the practical issues of implementing PEFC CoC, PEFC DDS, and managing the VFCS/ PEFC label of enterprises.

Capacity-building training on sustainable forest management under the VFCS/PEFC system is a regular activity within the VFCO’s mission to promote sustainable forest management and forest certification in Vietnam.

VFCO