What Does FSC Mean? The Certification Explained

Short answer: FSC is a label for forestry. It means the wood or bamboo comes from a forest or plantation run to a set standard for environment, working conditions and rights. It says something about the forest and nothing about what happens to the raw material afterwards.

What the letters stand for

FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council, an international organisation founded in 1993. It sets a standard for how a forest should be run, and independent auditors check whether a given forest lives up to it.

What the standard covers

It covers three areas: that the forest is not cleared faster than it grows, that animal and plant life are protected, and that the people who work in and live around the forest have rights that are respected. The three are assessed together.

Why it applies to bamboo too

Bamboo is a grass, but bamboo plantations can be certified to the same forestry standard, because the management resembles forestry. A bamboo plantation can therefore carry the label, even though the plant is botanically not a tree.

The chain from forest to shop

Besides the forest, every link in the chain that handles the raw material is certified too. Without that part, certified and uncertified material could be mixed along the way, and then the label on the finished item would mean nothing.

What it does not cover

FSC says nothing about how the fibre was made afterwards, which chemicals the factory uses, or how the garment is sewn. Other labels cover that, and they have to be judged separately rather than added together.

Alongside other labels

A product can carry both FSC and a chemical test. See OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified items, which covers the finished fabric, where FSC covers the raw material. Together the two cover one end of the chain each.

Where to find it here

The items whose raw material is certified sit under FSC. It is not the whole range, and it is stated on the individual item whether the label applies, rather than applying to a whole category.

At Copenhagen Bamboo

The same applies in the sister range. See Copenhagen Bamboo, where the same materials and the same labels recur, because the goods come from the same suppliers and are produced in the same places.

The three variants

There are three variants: FSC 100 per cent, FSC Mix and FSC Recycled. The first means all the material comes from certified forest, the second that it is mixed with other controlled material, and the third that it is recycled.

How to check it

A genuine FSC label carries a licence number that can be looked up in a public database. If only the logo appears with no number, there is nothing to look up and therefore nothing that can be checked. See also the honest guide to bamboo and the environment.