The cost of certification is affected by many factors, which must be correctly identified to determine the labor costs of the certification work and the fees paid to FSC for each certificate holder.
The main factors affecting the cost of forest management (FM) certification are:
- the area of the company’s forest fund;
- relief;
- concentration of forest areas;
- intensity of forest exploitation;
- presence of special values for conservation, etc.
The main factors affecting the cost of supply chain certification (SOC) are:
- the type of activity of the organization (producer or trader);
- the total revenue of the Organization from the sale of products containing wood;
- the number of production sites and the distance between them and the central office, etc.
Some areas of activity require the audit company to take into account specific factors that affect the overall risk assessment of one or another organization-applicant and may be a reason for increasing labor costs when conducting audits or denying the applicant certification. Taking this into account, the determination of the cost of certification works requires individual calculations for each applicant organization separately based on the information received from it using the established application form.