25 February 2011

Application of FSC Logos to Printed Work Supplied to Customers by Resellers

The BPIF has recently been in correspondence with FSC and PEFC to seek clarification on chain of custody requirements in circumstances where FSC/PEFC logos are applied to work supplied to customers by franchisees or resellers who are selling work printed on their behalf by a printing company that has FESC or PEFC accreditation.

The circumstances in relation to which we sought their advice are those in which a printing company with FSC and/or PEFC accreditation offers a third party reseller programme under which anyone purchasing print for an end-customer would be able to claim FSC accreditation for any work that they get printed by on their behalf by that printing company. The printing company would facilitate this by adding the FSC and/or PEFC logos to the work printed on the reseller's behalf, enabling the reseller to claim that they satisfy the requirements of clients seeking to produce print that carries FSC or PEFC certification without having to obtain certification themselves. In such circumstances, the reseller (who might be a designer, agency, print management company, or indeed another printing company) would retain control of all aspects of the business transaction with the end-customer, including artwork, copyright, contacts and sales leads. The reseller's brand only would appear on any transactional documents (quotes, contracts, invoices etc) and the name and logo of the printing company producing the actual printed material would not feature in any documentation seen by the end-customer

We asked FSC and PEFC whether they would consider their chain of custody requirements were satisfied in such circumstances, given that the printing company actually producing the printed material concerned would not have complete chain of custody within their own company. We also asked them whether there would be any particular requirements that would need to be met by either the printing company concerned or their reseller to assure them that there would be no breach of chain of custody.

In response FSC have confirmed that the printing company producing the printed material would be within their rights to say that they can produce FSC labelled products and that resellers can resell FSC products without being certified.  The FSC label they applied would carry an FSC number that was unique to them and can be verified online at http://info.fsc.org/. Resellers are free to sell on FSC labelled materials to their clients without making any further off-product claims, and would require no authorisation in these circumstances.  Resellers would, however, need to hold FSC chain of custody certification or a non-certificate holder trademark licence from FSC UK in order to use the FSC trademarks to promote the fact that they can arrange for an FSC print service.  If they hold a non-certificate holder trademark licence they are limited to saying something along the lines of "We always liase with our FSC certified suppliers to arrange FSC certified print wherever possible for bespoke jobs".  In either case (certification or trademark licensing) a company would have to provide evidence to it's FSC certification body or FSC UK that it was sourcing FSC labelled products from an FSC certified supplier.

PEFC confirmed that the only way that a reseller could pass on goods as PEFC certified would be if they were acquiring print jobs from a chain of custody printer using PEFC paper with full chain of custody up to the printer (i.e. the printer purchased the paper from a PEFC supplier so that the reseller has not taken ownership).  The reseller could then pass on the 'finished, labeled product' to their customer pretty much like a retailer will take in labeled products for selling to the final consumer.  At present, few resellers hold COC, although this is something that PEFC are encouraging them to do and they would expect the same of any reseller in this position. Without chain of custody, the reseller could not advertise themselves as a certified company.