2026-08-12
To systematically address forest degradation, balance international trade and environmental protection, reduce trade frictions, eliminate fragmented standards and cut compliance complexity of cross-border trade, the World Sustainability Standard Organization (WSSO) has completed the draft of WSSO SD-2025-17 Technical Guidelines for Compliance Assessment of Deforestation-Free Products and is now publicly soliciting comments globally.
I. Core Overview of the Standard
1. Formulation Background
Expansion of global agriculture, forestry and timber industrial chains has triggered massive deforestation and forest degradation, worsening greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Unilateral green trade regulations represented by the EU Deforestation-free Products Regulation (EUDR) have been enforced, imposing mandatory requirements on supply chain traceability and compliance verification of imported and exported goods. Currently, forest governance, traceability inspection and risk assessment rules vary across nations, and no universal international evaluation specification is available for the industry. Enterprises face inconsistent compliance criteria and frequent cross-border trade barriers. Existing forest certification systems focus merely on forest plantation management, lacking a unified technical framework for full-industry-chain compliance judgment, while enterprises in developing countries lack standardized guidance for compliance transformation. To bridge global rule discrepancies, WSSO jointly develops this standard with global agriculture & forestry enterprises, research institutions and sustainable development organizations. It unifies technical criteria covering traceability, risk grading, due diligence and compliance judgment for deforestation-free products, balances industrial gaps between different economies, removes barriers caused by unilateral trade rules, and facilitates coordinated forest conservation and low-carbon sustainable trade across global supply chains.
2. Objectives and Positioning of the Standard
This standard is a universal international compliance assessment specification developed by WSSO for agricultural, forestry and wood product industrial chains, serving as the unified technical foundation for global enterprises to implement deforestation-free supply chain management, import & export compliance inspection and green qualification certification. Integrating global forest conservation and trade governance requirements, it standardizes the full set of technical procedures including raw material traceability, deforestation risk classification, due diligence and compliance determination. Its core goals are to harmonize differentiated national governance rules, lower cross-border compliance costs for global enterprises and offset the impact of unilateral green trade barriers. Taking industrial realities of both developed and developing economies into account, it delivers operable standardized governance solutions to guide the whole industrial chain to abandon deforestation-sourced raw materials and curb carbon emissions from forest loss. It also provides a unified evaluation benchmark for national regulatory authorities and purchasers, fostering a fair, low-carbon and sustainable trade system for global agricultural and forestry supply chains.
3. Core Contents of the Draft Standard
Scope of application and normative referenced documents
Terms and definitions (including chain of custody, timber, wood products, etc.)
General requirements, organizational requirements and raw material management
Due diligence system including information collection and risk assessment
Chain of custody approaches: physical separation method, percentage method and credit method
Product information, declarations, compliance and law enforcement
II. Scope of Consultation Participants
This global consultation is open to global building material manufacturers, industrial associations, research institutes, testing & certification bodies, traders, consumer organizations and relevant government departments. All parties are welcome to put forward valuable comments and suggestions on the standard’s technical content, operability and implementability.
III. Requirements for Feedback Submission
Feedback specifications: Clearly mark the standard number, clause number and specific revision proposals, explain revision reasons and supporting basis, and attach relevant supporting materials if available.
Feedback deadline: From the release date of this notice to September 30, 2026
Submission method: Send feedback via email to Standard@WSSO.org. The email subject shall be formatted as "Feedback on WSSO SD-2025-17 + Name of Organization / Individual".
IV. Miscellaneous Provisions
WSSO will summarize, sort out and review all received feedback, revise the standard text based on reasonable suggestions, form the standard review draft and proceed with subsequent approval procedures.
The full text of the consultation draft can be downloaded from WSSO official website: https://www.wsso.org/academy-detail.php?aid=110
Public consultation is a vital link in standard formulation. We appreciate active participation from all global stakeholders to jointly boost the standardized development of the building materials industry to a new level.
World Sustainability Standard Organization (WSSO)
August 10, 2026
