In recent years, FSC certification has become increasingly popular with exporting companies, especially those that produce paper, wood, and wood pellets for export to overseas markets, where major corporations have commitments to environmental protection. Vietnamese wood pellets have been exported to many markets around the world, such as China, South Korea, Japan, and more. Japan is a promising market with a large demand for wood pellets. However, in order to export wood pellets to the Japanese market, Vietnamese companies must meet strict requirements on quality, technical standards, and environmental protection. FSC certification is a mandatory requirement. Therefore, obtaining FSC certification is the golden key that helps Vietnamese wood pellet exporters open the door to the Japanese market.
What is FSC certification?
FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1993 with the goal of promoting sustainable forest management around the world. With a presence in over 50 countries and over 850 members, including non-governmental organizations, research centers, international certification management organizations, community development centers, and businesses, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a prestigious organization with a major impact on forest protection and the environment in general.
FSC certification is a certificate used for forest managers or manufacturers of forest products that meet the criteria for sustainable development, balancing the values of environmental protection (forests) with the social benefits of stakeholders (manufacturers, society, and local people).

3 types of FSC forest certificates
FSC certificates are accredited by FSC (a non-profit, non-governmental organization) after completing the evaluation and verification of a country's forest resources. There are currently 3 types of FSC certificates:
FMC (Forest Management Certificate): This is a certificate of forest protection rights, provided to forest areas of a country that have met environmental, social, and economic standards.
CoC (Chain of Custody Certificate): This is a type of product chain certificate.
FSC-CoC/CW (FSC-Chain of Custody/Control Wood) Certificate: This is a product chain certificate that assesses controlled wood sources.
The role of FSC in exporting wood pellets to the Japanese market
Japan is the second largest market after South Korea in terms of the volume of wood pellet imports from Vietnam. Previously, Japan mainly imported wood pellets from Canada due to the good and stable quality of the pellets. However, due to the long distance, it is necessary to import a quantity (about 50,000 tons) for each trip to be economically efficient. This inadvertently puts pressure on the storage capacity of Japanese thermal power plants. To address this, Japan switched to importing wood pellets from Vietnam with a production of about 10,000 tons per shipment. However, Japan's pellet quality standards are more stringent than those of South Korea. In addition, Japanese partners always require FSC certification for the raw materials used to make pellets, so only large factories can meet the orders from Japanese partners.
Vietnam's advantages: Along with high standards, Japanese partners usually commit to long-term contracts (about 10-15 years), creating a great incentive for factories to feel secure about solving the output problem. In addition, the export price of wood pellets to Japan is also much higher and better than the export price to South Korea. Therefore, it can be seen that in the near future, Japan will be the main market that Vietnam needs to target. To maintain the export market, businesses must have a clear source of wood materials, with FSC certification to create a competitive advantage.