'FSC Announces Disassociation from Korindo Group', 15 July 2021

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) announced today its decision to disassociate from Korindo. To implement this decision, FSC has terminated Korindo’s trademark licenses with FSC, and this termination will have effect from 16 October 2021.

Prior to the FSC Board of Directors’ decision, Korindo was working to achieve significant social and environmental improvements as outlined in a set of preliminary conditions defined by FSC in 2019.

The Board requested to receive progress updates to ensure that a credible, timebound and independently verified process was in place, and that visible progress was made against the commitments. However, FSC and Korindo were not able to agree on the procedure to put in place independent verification of progress, and this led to delays in FSC’s ability to verify and report Korindo’s progress against these conditions...

The case started in 2017, when Mighty Earth submitted a policy for association complaint to FSC, alleging Korindo’s involvement in deforestation, human rights abuses and destruction of high conservation values in its forestry operations in Indonesia...

FSC appreciates the indications it has received that Korindo is still committed to showcase further progress in the future. On this basis, FSC is committed to working with Korindo to re-enter into a formal process to potentially end the disassociation. Such a process could be started in 2022 based on the requirements defined in FSC’s policy for association remediation procedure, which is currently being developed...