3rd TAGRA

The Chain of Custody (CoC) certification, developed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), is a global standard aimed at ensuring the delivery of wood and forest products from sustainably managed sources to the final consumer in an unbroken and traceable manner. Structured around the FSC-STD-40-004 standard, this system mandates key criteria such as management responsibility, raw material procurement and verification, traceability control systems (transfer, percentage, and credit systems), mass balance calculations, sales declarations, and compliance with FSC Core Labour Requirements. The emergence of sustainable forestry principles as a strategic necessity in international trade has rapidly increased the demand for FSC certification within Türkiye's forest products and furniture sectors. The aim of this study is to examine the normative criteria of the FSC CoC certification system and to identify the primary academic, technical, and operational challenges encountered by manufacturing and exporting companies in Türkiye during the implementation process. Within the scope of the research, qualitative and quantitative findings were evaluated based on field audits conducted at wood processing and packaging facilities in Türkiye. The results indicate that the most frequently encountered issues in Turkish implementations include: insufficient supplies of certified domestic raw materials; missing FSC code declarations on supplier invoices and delivery notes; errors in calculating waste rates and conversion factors during production processes; and contractual and auditing shortcomings in subcontracting (outsourcing) operations. Furthermore, other critical areas of non-compliance for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) include FSC certification costs, a lack of personnel training, and the risk of uncertified inputs physically mixing with certified products during storage and production stages. The study presents strategic solution proposals aimed at strengthening the domestic certified raw material supply chain, with the objective of maintaining the competitiveness of Türkiye's forest industry in the global market and ensuring full compliance with international standards.