Webinar | 02 Mar, 2023

Forest Stewardship Council’s upcoming International Women’s Day webinar

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) invites you to an online roundtableLinking Innovation, Technology, and Forests to Gender Equality”, 7 March, 3-4:30 pm CET. Many normative and discussion documents, including the Strategic Framework on Diversity & Gender define FSC’s requirements, values, and goals with regard to diversity and gender in forest stewardship.

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Photo: Forest Stewardship Council

On Tuesday, 7 March from 3-4:30pm CET, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) will host a webinar focused on this year’s theme for International Women’s Day, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” This roundtable discussion will spotlight women leaders in the forest and environmental sectors, both within FSC and externally. Speakers will share their experience and points of view of leadership while relating this year’s theme of innovation and technology for gender equality to FSC’s work in forests. The session is open to the public. We encourage you to join the session; please register here

Gender equality is not a new priority for FSC; it was included in version 5 of the FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship (2015). The 2016 Guideline “Promoting Gender Equality in National Forest Stewardship Standards” (FSC-GUI-60-005 V1-0 EN) gives examples of how national indicators for forest management certification could look like.  Beyond certification, we elaborated, based on intense consultations with staff and membership, in 2021 a baseline report titled Diversity and Gender in FSC, which looked at both the FSC system and in certified forests. In 2022, we published a Green Paper titled Benchmarking the Global State of Gender and Forests, which was authored by an external expert on diversity, gender, and social inclusion, Dr. Jiska de Groot. 

These steps culminated in the publication of the FSC Strategic Framework on Diversity and Gender in 2022, which will be made public on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2023. The framework analyses the role of diversity and gender in FSC, both as a system and as an organization, and focuses on our values, provides key focus areas, sets both high-level and strategy-specific goals, and lays out a timeline for a stepwise approach. Long-term goals focus on the implementation of mainstreaming diversity and gender within FSC by 2026, and on the full recognition of the multifunctionality of forests driven by the active and equal participation of all actors resulting in gender transformative change. To achieve these goals, FSC has laid out four focus areas: human rights and access to resources, tenure, and use; active participation and decision-making by all stakeholders, including all genders and all levels of seniority; the gender gap; and rights-based climate and biodiversity action. The framework is a major step in achieving FSC’s Global Strategy 2021-2026 and demonstrates our belief that diversity and gender equality are essential for the co-creation of relevant forest stewardship solutions and achieving our 2050 vision of resilient forests sustaining life on earth. 

Continuing our commitment to gender equality in the environmental sectors, we’d like to encourage you again to join our webinar roundtable for International Women’s Day on Tuesday, 7 March from 15-16:30 CET. Please register here; we look forward to having you join us!