Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
We herewith inform you about updates and clarifications in the ISCC System. Please share this information with all relevant members of staff.
1. ISCC Impact Report
ISCC is pleased to announce the publication of its first Impact Report. The report is an important milestone of ISCC’s development and reflects the relevance of the ISCC certification system and its contribution to a sustainable development.
Measuring ISCC’s impact took a profound data assessment and an in-depth stakeholder dialogue. The result is a comprehensive report filled with an overview of ISCC’s work, the extent and importance of our operations and the scheme’s actual impact. We also included inspiring stories from around the world, to provide tangible examples of how ISCC certification supports the transformation towards a more sustainable world.
From now on, ISCC aims to publish the Impact Report regularly in the future.
We hope you will enjoy reading it!
Please click here to read the full report
2. Update ISCC Documents
ISCC List of Materials
Table 1 “Raw material”
- Sewage system FOG (“Fats, Oils and Grease”) was added
- (Free) fatty acids and soapstock acid oil were deleted as these materials should be covered under “waste/residues from processing of vegetable or animal oil”
Table 2 “Intermediate and final products”
- Biobutanol was added
System Documents available in Spanish
The ISCC EU System Documents “203 – Traceability and Chain of Custody” and “205 Greenhouse Gas Emissions” have been translated into Spanish and can now be downloaded here on the ISCC website.
Kindly note that the ISCC EU System Documents “201 – System Basics” and “202 – Sustainability Requirements” are also available in Spanish since last year.
Expiration of the Excel Farm Checklists
Please note that ISCC will only accept the use of the excel farm checklists for audits that will be conducted until 10 July 2019 and for the corresponding certification documents that will be send to ISCC until 08 September 2019. After this expiration period, ISCC will not accept the use of the excel farm checklists anymore. We kindly advise you to use APS or the audit procedures (word files) instead.
3. Clarification on the Requirements for Sustainable Batches of Material
Due to inquiries of market participants, we herewith clarify the requirements to accept a batch of material as “sustainable” according to ISCC. A recipient can consider a batch of material to be sustainable, if
- The supplier holds a valid certificate at the date of physical dispatch, and
- The supplier holds a valid certificate at the date of issuance of the sustainability declaration (sustainability declarations cannot be issued outside the validity period of a certificate), and
- The respective sustainability declaration or Proof of Sustainability (PoS) was received and is complete and consistent.
ISCC Document 201 System Basics specifies the following:
“Any recipient of sustainable material is obliged to verify the validity of the supplier’s ISCC certificate at the date of the physical dispatch of the sustainable material. In case of uncertainty, ISCC must be contacted for clarification. Furthermore, the recipient of the sustainable material has to check if all relevant information according to RED and FQD is included in the delivery documents (“sustainability declarations”), and is complete and consistent. If this diligence (duty of care) obligation has been respected a recipient can accept material as sustainable, complying with the RED and FQD requirements and ISCC (see also ISCC Document 203 “Traceability and Chain of Custody”).”
Kindly note that “elements of the supply chain that are not certified cannot handle material as sustainable and are not allowed to issue sustainability declarations according to this standard” (see ISCC Document 203).
4. Sourcing Biomass via “Local Agents” or “Country Dealers”
Due to current inquiries, we would like to point out once again how so-called “local agents” or “country dealers” are to be categorised in an ISCC-certified supply chain.
If local agents act on behalf of a certified First Gathering Point (FGP) and support the FGP in setting up contracts with the farmers, the local agents do not need to be considered as an FGP. In this case an individual certification of the local agent is not required. However, if the local agents act in their own name (i.e. selling the biomass to the FGP in their own name) these local agents act as first gathering points and must become certified individually.
Traceability and access to the individual farmers delivering sustainable biomass must be ensured during an audit of an FGP. Therefore, it is required that all self-declarations from ISCC compliant farmers and respective contracts with the farmers are available at the FGP. The contracts between FGP’s and farmers need to be audited in order to verify the amount of sustainable biomass provided by the individual farmers.
Please also see the clarification in the ISCC System Update as of 13 November 2018.