On September 15, 2026, AFI published guidance for companies that produce, purchase, or finance agricultural or forestry raw materials. The text does not create a new law or mandatory software. It proposes a method: mapping suppliers, organizing a control chain, and then circulating verifiable data on the origin, risks, and compliance of products.
The professional stakes are clear for the wood sector: a company can no longer simply claim that its sourcing is responsible; it must be able to demonstrate it. In Libreville, a compliance officer in an exporting sawmill must now consider both proof files and logs, sawing, and invoices.
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Certificate
Professional Certificate in Tropical Timber Traceability and Compliance
What does this mean in practice?
For a student in management, finance, or logistics, wood traceability can be understood as an accounting of the material. Previously, a company could often present separate documents: permits, invoices, transport slips, certificates, audit reports. The logic that prevails connects these pieces together. Each batch must tell a coherent story, from the forest concession or supply area to the sold product.
The AFi guidance is not a test and does not launch a unique application. It describes a method for knowing what data to collect, who validates it, how to transmit it, and how to identify gaps in the proof. AFi talks about control systems and information transfer. For its part, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) presents FSC Trace as a voluntary digital traceability tool available to certificate holders, with features evolving in 2026. This last piece of information is a data declared by FSC.
Concrete case: what to do and what not to do
Questions to ask before acting
- When proof of sustainability becomes a shared data point among foresters, sawmills, traders, certifiers, and buyers, who truly bears the responsibility for its quality?
- Does our system only prove the existence of a certificate, or does it link each batch to origin and compliance data?
- What documents accompany each batch: permit, concession, essence, date, volume, transport, transformation, sale?
- Can field teams collect data even with an unstable connection?
- What procedure allows for correcting an inconsistency between physical volume, invoice, and traceability document?
- What do we share with clients, and what information do we keep confidential?
- Does our approach combine certification, supplier control, and internal verification, instead of relying on a single actor?
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