دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی شکل دهی به اجرای استانداردهای FSC: مورد حسابرسان در برزیل - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label is one of the most widely accepted standards aimed at assessing longterm sustainable forest management worldwide. Through audits, accredited certification bodies assess the level of conformity of a firm’s performance against the standard to grant or not the certificate on behalf of the FSC. In this paper, we assess the scope auditors have to shape the implementation of the FSC standard in Brazil. Our work is based on the analysis of certification bodies’ rules and of available public full assessment and annual audit reports covering the period 2009–2013, completed with interviews with key informants. We show that most indicators of the Brazilian FSC standard leave no scope for interpretation. However, firms are certified and re-certified with a significant number of minor non-conformance with social, legal and environmental indicators. Moreover, the gradual improvement of the performance of the firm cannot always be considered as final. We conclude that some indicators are too broad and need to be clarified, that the FSC should limit the number of minor non-conformance issues allowed and prohibit their recurrence. More systematic surveys could narrow possible interpretations by auditors and certification bodies.

4. Conclusion

The large number of objective indicators in the Brazilian FSC standards limits the possibility that auditors shape its implementation. Nevertheless, they still have important responsibilities in the process of implementation, some of which involve risks for the certification bodies themselves. FSC should undertake systematic surveys, based on ASI assessments, with certification bodies, to identify the persisting bottlenecks regarding possible interpretations by auditors and certification bodies.

With the existing system of minor and major non-conformance, the auditors decide how much time the companies have to correct management failures without losing their certification. The certification manager of each audit team is responsible for deciding if the overall performance of the company is sufficient to justify certification, even with a significant number of minor non-conformance issues. At the same time, such decisions are those that allow the company to make further improvements.

Certified companies do not comply with all the indicators of the standard. In the Brazilian context, this means in particular that auditors and certification bodies do not succeed in guaranteeing full compliance with the labor and environmental legislation. FSC should work more closely with national teams to define which indicators of the national standards can explicitly remain not fully in full conformance during a specified period because their full conformance does not depend only on the certificate holders’ actions. FSC could also promote more frequent reviews of the national standards and of their indicators, for example every two years instead of every five years currently, to account for the results of the audits.