Seeing the Forest for the Trees: EU’s Anti-Deforestation Reg Is Less Than a Year Away

As companies strive to uphold the rights of human workers in their global supply chains, they shouldn’t overlook another critical concern of regulators: trees.

On the horizon is the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR), described by the EU as an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and preserve biodiversity by slowing the destruction and degradation of the world’s forests.

EU regulators are targeting the stripping of forests for agricultural production of such commodities as wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber and cattle. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 10 million hectares of forest are cut down each year. “The EU is partly responsible for this problem and wants to lead the way to solving it,” the European Commission says.

Enforcement of the EUDR is currently scheduled to kick in on December 30, 2025, with a longer period of adaptation for “micro and small” enterprises. As of that date, products entering the EU must be verified as not contributing to deforestation or environmental degradation. To be in compliance, companies must provide full traceability of affected goods, in many cases all the way back to the plot of land on which they were produced. Verification takes the form of a “due diligence” statement that’s submitted to the EU.

That sounds like a tall order for complex, multi-tier agricultural sup…