COC Certification Required for GC...?

Yes, if you modify the purchased material and you wish to contribute to MRc7, you need to have your shop receive FSC certification. The certification assures the end user that the material has been properly tracked within your shop and FSC material is not mixed with non-FSC material. To your second point, if they are not modifying the FSC product from THEIR source, then no, they won't need to receive FSC certification. If they are, then they will (see above). Its all about chain of custody. As an end user who deems FSC important, I need to be able to track that piece of wood all the way back to the forest and be assured that it was extracted via FSC standards.

Hi Adrienne and Andrew - It has been my experience that typically, General Contractors do not need to be FSC COC Certified and that typically, Suppliers of FSC COC Certified Materials do need to be Certified. General Contractors usually are the 'end-of-the-line' when it comes to the Chain of Custody - I.E. Even though the G.C. is modifying the FSC materials to install it, they are not selling it up stream to another entity that is then installing them on a project - and that makes all the difference. G.C.'s are modifying the FSC materials for their use. Suppliers on the other hand are usually making some kind of modification to the FSC materials and then selling it to another entity that installs (and may modify it some) it at the job site. Even breaking the bands on a unit of lumber or plywood constitutes modifying the FSC material. So lumberyards should be FSC COC Certified. Part of the FSC COC Certification means that suppliers have a method for keeping the FSC Material tracked, labeled (that requirement varies) and billed properly so that the Chain of Custody stays intact until the product reaches it's final point of use. Best Doug

Agreed Doug but it depends on which cost the team is going to claim on their MRc7 calculations and that is where they need to be careful. In the example of cabinetry that uses 100% FSC certified wood, if the millwork shop is not FSC certified then the team can only claim the mill shops original cost for the components, not the Owners final cost for the cabinet (which would include labor). If the shop was certified, then the FSC cost claimed could be the final end cost (in this example I'm assuming that the cabinet is 100% virgin wood). Btw, reading your commentary below, I think you and I are on the same page with this but I just wanted to clarify for the OP.

Hi Andrew, I am inferring something from your comment that I don't see anywhere else - that you can actually pursue MR7 up to the point that your CoC chain is broken. In the past we have pursued FSC on numerous projects that do not have a certified millworker. The millworker has been the subcontractor/installer which previously was not the "vendor" needing certification. Now that the millworker/subcontractor/installer apparently does need to be certified, our projects will not comply despite the FSC dollars spent. Our FSC claims have always been based on the supplier dollars and not the millworker/installer dollars. You seem to be saying that we could still make that claim because we are not trying to include the installed with labor dollar values that correspond to the non-certified millworker. Is that in fact true? Can you pursue MR7 through only part of the supply chain as long as the dollars claimed reflect that?