The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has revised its guidelines for group Chain of Custody (CoC) certification, making the COC more accessible to a greater number of printing facilities and other smaller enterprises. In a presentation during the Green Forest University College of Paper and Pring held Tuesday, June 29 near Portland Oregon, FSC’s Director of Development, Ian Hanna, announced that FSC has raised the top-end cut-off for group certification from US$1million in total sales to US$5 million in sales of forest products (making the sales target more specific to paper), and has eliminated any limit on the number of employees in a company applying for group certification. The group certification provision is designed to make FSC CoC certification accessible to a broader group of small businesses that would otherwise find the cost of individual certification prohibitive. According to Hanna, the new thresholds are based on research and an analysis of real-world operating constraints. Printing Industries of America and independent entities have lobbied FSC for some time to revise its group CoC policies in light of North American market realities. The revised policy reflects the responsiveness of  FSC-US staff, board members, and other stakeholders. Details of the management of group certification for printers under the new parameters are yet to be worked out, but group management under the auspices of regional trade associations is one of the concepts under consideration.