The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has pulled back on plans to make its proposed Online Claims Platform (OCP) mandatory to all certificate holders and has delayed its launch until early 2015.

OCP’s original 2013 rollout had already been delayed due to stakeholder concerns that this would present too great an extra administrative burden for companies such as paper merchants and printers, and so would push companies away from accreditation.

In a statement, FSC announced that OCP would now be a voluntary tool and that the body was in the process of further exploring a gap in the present chain of custody (CoC) certification system that “consists in the fact that the precise volumes of FSC certified forest products traded are not being compared between trading parties…”

The statement said the FSC board ‘Requests the further development of the OCP as one tool to close the gap, recognizing  that other existing and future systems may serve the same purpose.’

Managing director at Northend Creative Nigel Stubley, an FSC-certified printer who’s previously described OCP as “an unnecessary and expensive burden”, said: “I’m reading this as they’re backing off big time. They’re backing down gracefully to save face, because when everybody eventually heard about this they were up in arms.”

FSC has also modified its OCP plans in response to concerns over data security.