The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is demanding transparency from producers, exporters and traders of certain commodities within the European Union. The regulation aims to prevent the purchase and consumption of goods that contribute to deforestation within the EU. The EUDR has been adjusted recently to allow businesses more time to prepare. This article aims to update readers on the regulation and dive into the requirements for compliance.
Recent updates of the EUDR
The EUDR is an extension of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR). The deforestation regulation aims to prevent goods that contribute to deforestation being purchased and consumed within the EU. The EUDR widens the scope of commodities affected, applying to cocoa, soya and coffee among others. The regulation also demands stricter requirements for the traceability of these commodities.
The regulation on deforestation has been introduced to enforce a standard of transparency and traceability for commodities that contribute to deforestation. The requirements were supposed to go into effect on December 30th of this year, however the European Commission proposed its implementation should be delayed by one year, to December 30th 2025. This proposal has been accepted and the delay aims to give all actors required to comply, more time to prepare for the EUDR.
Although there was some controversy about the delay of the EUDR, the European Commission has released additional information related to EUDR compliance including and guidance documents. These documents provide actors with more details necessary to prepare for EUDR compliance. In this blog we are going to outline a few of the requirements, and detail some of the information that is needed to comply.
Steps to Compliance
EUDR compliance is dependent on the ‘Due Diligence Statement’. This is an account of traceability that operators and traders create to ensure that the commodities they are responsible for are not contributing to deforestation.
All actors required to comply with the EUDR must complete a due diligence statement. This consists of 1. information gathering, 2. risk assessment and 3. risk mitigation (each of these steps are explained in the previous EUDR blog.) Operators and traders have to set up and maintain this due diligence system for all products. And the due diligence statement must be created for each product, even those from the same land.
Due Diligence Statement
As part of the Due Diligence requirements, operators need to comply with the sourcing country legislation. It is of utmost importance for operators to abide by the rules of the countries they are sourcing from on a national level, as well as to pay attention to the regional law of the area and international treaties and agreements. Documents that can be accepted as part of the due diligence statement include official documents issued by countries’ authorities like administrative permits, contracts with indigenous peoples, judicial decisions, impact assessments, management plans and environmental audit reports. Company policies and codes of conduct can also be useful in certain instances, and documents showing social responsibility agreements or reporting on rights claims and conflicts.
Due Diligence statements must be submitted via the deforestation registry created by the European Commission. This has been set up to facilitate operators of all sizes in their information collection and to help stakeholders understand the new requirements. It is a digital platform for information exchange designed to reduce the administrative work for operators and improve efficiency for those, especially as many actors are required to create multiple due diligence statements.
Since November 6th the platform has been open to operators, traders, and representatives to register their information in the system.
Risk Categories
Countries are given a risk profile based on the environmental and social risks associated with the area, split into low, standard and high risk. Currently, areas classified as low risk will be subject to simplified due diligence obligations. Meaning that operators and traders dealing in products sourced from low risk areas will be required to collect information about these commodities but do not need to complete the full due diligence statement, considering the low risk profile of their product area.
Areas that are classified as medium or high risk will be required to comply with all due diligence requirements according to the current EUDR guidelines.
What is the key to ensuring EUDR compliance?
Ensuring compliance with the EUDR requires organisations to have a strong traceability and monitoring system in place. This outlines several functional requirements for the monitoring system. Firstly the monitoring system should provide real-time and customised risk data at national and regional levels for product origins.
Additionally, this data should be consolidated from reputable databases to ensure information reliability and offer valuable insights for action and risk mitigation. The system should enable simplified collaboration with upstream and downstream stakeholders to facilitate compliance requests.
Agriplace’s role in document compliance
Agriplace can help with your EUDR compliance needs through its database connections, sustainability risk assessment platform and supply chain transparency.
At Agriplace we have a direct connection to some of the most well-known databases in the food industry. With partners such as the FSSC and Planet Proof,
Agriplace can make document management simple.
The Agriplace Sustainability Risk Assessment was created in consultation with the WWF, the UNDP and the Environmental Performance Index. This platform allows organisations to view sustainability risks based on product and region, to help classify risk areas and automatically send requests for specific sustainability risk certificates.
At Agriplace, we are working on addressing document compliance throughout the supply chain for the food and beverage industry.
If you have any further questions about what Agriplace can do to help with your EUDR compliance, contact us here.
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