The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is considered on the pioneers of forest certification. As advocates for sustainable forest management, FSC uses their resources to promote responsible management for forests around the world. The organization was formed after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio was unable to create an agreement to stop deforestation, so a collection of businesses, environmentalists, and community leaders came together under the goal of improving forestry practices world-wide. The FSC officially started in 1994 and since have certified over 199,000,000 hectares of forest.

To receive FSC forest management certification, a forest operation must adhere to the ten principles outlined by the association:

• Principle #1: Compliance with laws
Requires compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.

• Principle #2: Workers' rights and employment conditions
Requires the maintenance or enhancement of the social and economic well-being of workers.

 
• Principle #3: Indigenous peoples' rights
Requires identifying and upholding indigenous peoples' legal and customary rights of ownership, use and management of land.

• Principle #4: Community relations
Requires contributing to maintaining or enhancing the social and economic well-being of local communities.

• Principle #5: Benefits from the forest
Requires management of the range of multiple products and services of the operation to maintain or enhance long term economic viability and the range of environmental and social benefits.

• Principle #6: Environmental values and impact
Requires the operations to maintain, conserve and/or restore ecosystem services and environmental values, and shall avoid, repair or mitigate negative environmental impacts.

• Principle #7: Management planning
Requires the organization to have a management plan consistent with its policies and objectives and proportionate to scale, intensity and risks of its management activities.

• Principle #8: Monitoring and assessment
Requires demonstration of progress towards achieving the management objectives, the impacts of management activities.

• Principle #9: High conservation values
Requires maintaining and/or enhancing the high conservation values in the organization.

• Principle #10: Implementation of management activities
Requires that management activities be selected and implemented consistent with the organization's economic, environmental and social policies and objectives.

https://fsc.org/en