The European Union’s proposed one-year delay of its deforestation regulation (EUDR) has provoked sharp reaction from advocates who urge companies to get on with their no-deforestation commitments.
The delay is “a grave threat to the world’s forests, already under severe pressure,” said Mighty Earth, in a statement. The 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment reported that 6.37 million hectares — or nine million soccer fields — of forest were lost in 2023 alone.
Delaying action is a “blatant contradiction with all EU commitments to halt global biodiversity loss and climate change,” said the Rainforest Alliance, adding that the delay “penalizes those companies and producers that have already made significant investments to comply with the EUDR.”
“It’s a bit like rewarding the laggards,” said Fanni Gautier, public affairs lead at the Rainforest Alliance.
Source: Forest Declaration Assessment Partners
Key actions needed
If the delay is implemented, companies should take advantage of the added time to better prepare and implement the most robust solutions possible, activists said.
“First movers will benefit from the more level playing field created by the EUDR,” said Linda Walker, senior director, corporate engagement forests at WWF, which created the EUDR Step-by-Step Guide to help companies and their suppliers develop and implement compliance systems and procedures.
Here are key actions for meeting and exceeding the EUDR regulation:
Include all 7 EUDR commodities in no-deforestation commitments
Very few companies have set time-bound, quantifiable deforestation-free commitments covering all seven EUDR commodities (soy, beef, palm oil, pulp and paper, cocoa, coffee, rubber) across all their supply chain segments and sourcing geographies, according to Ceres’ 2023 Deforestations Scorecard.
Since the report’s release, companies have made “measured progress in developing more robust deforestation plans, ” said Carolyn Ching, director of research, food and forests at the sustainability advocacy nonprofit Ceres, citing in particular Hershey, Marfrig and Unilever. However, “most of the dozens of major companies benchmarked last year are still not disclosing enough progress to bring them in compliance with the EUDR and mitigate the escalating risks they face from deforestation.”
The Accountability Framework Initiative offers companies a roadmap for addressing all commodities.
The Consumer Goods Forum’s Forest Positive Approach, by comparison, covers only four commodities: soy, cattle, palm and pulp and paper. The forum is not moving to change that. “While we do not have plans in near future to expand to all forest-related commodities, we are working across various coalitions … to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and work closely with them to protect the world’s forests,” Didier Bergeret, sustainability director at the forum, told Trellis Group.
Move beyond deforestation-free supply chains to deforestation-free businesses
Companies need to transition toward becoming deforestation-free businesses, said Amanda Horowitz, senior director at Mighty Earth, noting that many traders source multiple commodities from within the same landscapes. “It does not matter where the deforestation is in the supply chain,” she said. “If the business that you’re buying from is engaged in deforestation, you suspend them.”
“We see companies like Hershey’s and Unilever acting regardless of whether it’s for palm oil or if it’s for timber, pulp and paper, or mining,” she added.
Transitioning to such an approach will take time, cautioned Kerry Daroci, cocoa sector lead at the Rainforest Alliance, acknowledging the difficulties in addressing multiple commodities within a landscape and the support farmers need to develop deforestation-free practices.
Step up soy and cattle focus in Latin America
Most progress on slowing deforestation has been made in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia where “private sector commitments are really having an impact,” said Horowitz, noting steep declines in deforestation for palm oil, pulp and paper.
But similar declines are not happening for chocolate in West Africa or for soy and cattle in Latin America, she said.
At least 13 percent of the original Amazon Basin has been lost to deforestation and forest degradation, driven largely by illegal activities linked to organized crime, said Rodrigo Botero, Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible, in Colombia at a September press event.
Similarly in Central America, land grabbing, road building and the transformation of forest to cattle pasture is “capitalized, funded and financed with the profits from the drug trade,” said Kendra McSweeney, professor of geography, at Ohio State University.
Citing Greeley, Colorado-based JBS Foods as one of the “worst actors” in cattle trading, she said, “We need companies like Casino Group and Carrefour to cut JBS out of their supply chains or make JBS cut the farmers that are doing deforestation out of their supply chain.”
Scale up landscape restoration efforts
While the EUDR is “really helpful for companies who haven’t done much [to address] deforestation in their supply chains, companies need to go beyond that” and address the underlying pressures driving deforestation, said Daroci.
“If you want to solve deforestation … you need to take a landscape approach,” said Dirk Van de Put, CEO of Mondelez and CGF co-chair, noting that the Forest Positive Coalition has 24 landscape approaches “where we are trying to find solutions.”
The Consumer Goods Forum’s landscape approach involves systemic efforts to remove deforestation and conversion from key commodity supply chains and support for sustainable forest management and restoration. Members invest in third-party organizations that fund indigenous and community organizations to protect their forests.
“What’s really important is that money is being used for the community to implement activities that they have defined to protect their forest,” said Rachel Kent, executive director at Forest Conservation Fund, which is implementing two of CGF’s landscape initiatives in Indonesia.
In the field
All of the Forest Conservation Fund’s projects are monitored by Starling satellite, through a partnership between Airbus and the Earthworm Foundation.
Other third-party groups use field-based monitoring tools, such as drones and camera traps to protect their territories.
More companies are talking about investing in landscape initiatives, Daroci said, but “the actual doing can be complicated, so finding organizations that know how to do it is key.” Landscapes for 1 Billion People is a good place to start, she said, and funding resources from US AID and other multilateral lending agencies can multiply efforts.
Read More: 4 ways companies can limit deforestation now