Do you know the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)?

The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), aimed at tackling deforestation and forest degradation, was initially set to come into force on December 30, 2024, requiring businesses to align with its provisions. For micro and small enterprises, the deadline was set six months later, on June 25, 2025.

 

However, on October 2, 2024, the European Commission officially proposed postponing the regulation’s enforcement by one year: to December 30, 2025, for larger companies and June 30, 2026, for SMEs, without altering its objectives or core content.

 

On November 14, 2024, the European Parliament voted to approve this postponement. It also adopted amendments to the regulation, which must now be negotiated with the Commission and the Council of the EU. The postponement is therefore subject to these negotiations. If no agreement is reached among the three institutions, businesses will need to comply with the EUDR’s original requirements from January 1, 2025.

 

WHY THE DELAY?

Non-EU countries have highlighted a need for additional time to prepare for the regulation's impact, and certain EU member states are not yet fully prepared. The European Parliament and Council are expected to make a decision by the end of 2024 via an accelerated procedure, where the proposal will be discussed directly in a plenary session without review by a specialist committee.

ORIGINS AND ADOPTION OF THE REGULATION

The RDUE’s path began in April 2023, when the European Parliament passed the regulation by a wide majority (552 votes in favour, 44 against, and 43 abstentions). Published in the Official Journal of the European Union in June 2023, this regulation has become essential for businesses.

 

For further information, refer to:

• The first webinar by the French Commissariat général au développement durable (CGDD) dedicated to presenting corporate obligations (April 20, 2023);
• The second webinar by CGDD focusing on the implementation of EUDR (November 22, 2023).

 

OBJECTIVES OF EUDR

 

This regulation serves three core objectives:

 

• Environmental protection, with the main focus on protecting and preserving forests;
• Legality and sustainability: The commodities covered by the regulation must be produced in accordance with applicable international law in the national law of the country of production, and the legislation of the production country in various domains;
• Compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

The specific aims of the RDUE include:

 

• Reducing the risk of products associated with deforestation and forest degradation entering or leaving the European market;
• Encouraging the demand for and trade in products and raw materials that do not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation;
• Transforming supply chains to ensure their transparency and tha they are no longer associated with deforestation sources.

 

 

COMMODITIES COVERED BY THE EUDR

 

The EUDR targets seven key commodities and their derivative products:

• Coffee: roasted, decaffeinated, coffee husks, and pellicles, coffee substitutes containing coffee;
• Cocoa: beans and broken roasted or unroasted beans, husks, pellicles, other waste, cocoa butter, fat and oil, powder, and cocoa paste, even defatted, chocolate, etc.;
• Rubber: natural, natural rubber analogs in various forms, mixed rubber, yarns and cords, belts, tires, etc.;
• Products from oil palm: including its nuts and almonds, palm oil and kernel oil, cake, various acids, glycerol, etc.;
• Soy: beans, bean flour, oil and refined or unrefined fractions, cake, etc.;
• Beef: fresh, frozen, or refrigerated meat, edible offal, leather and hides, etc.;
• Wood: raw, for heating, in various forms, and all its derivatives, such as printed paper, wood wool, particle boards, charcoal, furniture, tools, etc.

 

A comprehensive list of these derived products is available on page 38 of the regulation, downloadable in all EU languages.

 

Companies will need to demonstrate that these products are legally produced in the country of origin and have not contributed to deforestation or forest degradation since December 31, 2020 (the "cut-off date"), aligning with existing international commitments, including:

 

• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, New York Declaration on Forests;
• European Commission actions: communication titled "Stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world's forests," the European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and the Farm to Fork Strategy.

 

As EUDR is a regulation, it must be uniformly adopted by all EU member states, unlike a directive, which requires transposition into national law.

 

The regulation is set to undergo periodic reviews – likely after 1, 2, and 5 years – to potentially broaden its scope to other biodiverse areas such as peatlands, and possibly to include the financial sector, maize, and palm oil biofuels.

 

 

RISK ASSESSMENT UNDER THE EUDR

 

Once in force, only products meeting the following criteria can be imported into or exported from the EU:

• Products free from deforestation, defined by the regulation as the "conversion, anthropogenic or not, of the forest for agricultural use." In other words, products must not contain, be fed with, or be manufactured/produced (1) from materials from deforested lands after December 31, 2021 (2). For wood products, they must come from forests exploited without degradation after this same date.

• Products manufactured/produced in accordance with the legislation of the production country, respecting land use rights, environmental protection, forestry regulations, labor law, human rights, third-party rights, the principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) including in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and taxation, trade, customs regulations, and anti-corruption efforts. The scope of EUDR goes beyond forestry regulations alone.

• Products that have undergone due diligence declaration. Distributors and traders of the relevant products will be required, by examining their supply chain, to prove the absence of deforestation risk or demonstrate the control of this risk. Three main steps are necessary: information collection, risk assessment based on this information, and demonstration of risk control, if any, through the implementation of measures and actions. Due diligence declarations will be recorded on an official digital platform.

 

 

PREPARING FOR EUDR IMPLEMENTATION

 

Every two months until December 30, 2024, around 60 stakeholders, including EU member states, gather in a dedicated deforestation platform, representing all sectors.

 

Under the presidency of the European Commission, they assess progress in the implementation of the text and respond to questions. Applications for all sectors could be submitted before September 2023.

 

See the list of all sectors

 

If your organization is concerned with the implementation of ERDFD, you can contact your sector representative, who will relay your questions and suggestions to the Commission. Also note that the European Commission has published a detailed FAQ, last updated in Octobre 2024.

 

In addition to this platform, an informal working group brings together representatives from EU member states. Their work contributes to the previously mentioned FAQ and future guidance documents.

 

Two expert-led working groups have also been formed, bringing together experts selected by the Commission from among the members of the platform:

• A "Small Producers" group aiming to facilitate their preparation and integration from the application of the text (their first meeting took place in December 2023);

• A "Traceability" group to meet for the first time in early 2024.

Outcomes from these groups will be shared on the platform.

 

Support tools and resources:

Various resources are available to support compliance with the RDUE:

• Guidance Document: A guidance document provides detailed explanations to facilitate the implementation of the regulation, including definitions of specific terms such as "negligible risk" and clarifications on terms related to agricultural use. It also covers what is included under the term "product" (e.g., whether packaging is considered part of the product) and addresses cases involving composite products.
• Specific Guidelines for Agricultural Use: These guidelines, expected to be published in late 2024 or early 2025, will offer further clarity on the application of the regulation in the agricultural sector.
• Information System and Digital Interface: This interface will record due diligence declarations. A pilot test was conducted in December 2023 with around a hundred companies, and further tests are planned. Companies interested in participating can register their interest via their platform representative, after which the Commission will select participants. Two instructional videos are available on the declaration registry page, demonstrating how to submit a due diligence declaration online and how to create a new declaration based on a previously submitted one. The platform’s user guide has also been available for download since 1 October 2024.

 

Training on the Declaration Submission Interface: Training sessions on using the declaration registration interface are scheduled. Application instructions for these training sessions are expected to be posted on the dedicated web page in October 2024.

 

Finally, anyone can subscribe to the European Commission’s EUDR newsletter, an ideal way to stay up-to-date with the latest EUDR developments. Simply click the “Sign up for our Newsletter” link at the bottom of the Commission’s dedicated EUDR page.

 

 

FUTURE EUROPEAN FOREST OBSERVATORY

 

As part of the aforementioned preparatory work, a European Forest Observatory is being created in compliance with EUDR. This observatory includes several components, including:

 

• Satellite monitoring of global forest cover from 2020, allowing the identification of deforestation phenomena in the short, medium, and long term;
• Information on trade flows, detailing the nature, volume, and direction of flows of products and by-products between countries and regions.
• Various forest monitoring tools, including quasi-real-time analysis of time series of satellite data, analysis of landscape structure, distribution of tree species in Europe, etc.

 

The first maps from the European Forest Observatory are available since December 2023.

 

Initial assessments of high-risk countries and regions are expected by the end of 2024. In France, a competent authority was designated in late 2023 to align with relevant state services.

 

The first inspections are set to begin in 2025, although any delay in implementation may adjust this timeline.

 

For tailored guidance, EVEA’s Social Footprint team is available to support companies in analysing supply chains, identifying deforestation risks, and ensuring compliance with national environmental and social laws through social life-cycle analysis or other methods.

 

Key Resources:

• European Commission’s RDUE Page
• Information System and Declaration Platform Page

Additional Resources:

• RDUE Myths and Facts Page
• SME-Specific Obligations Page

 

Pauline Roignant, Watch Manager at EVEA

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(1) The production date corresponds to the harvest date. For animals, it corresponds to the animal's lifespan, including slaughter (this information must be known and transparent for all breeding locations).

(2) Data must be kept for 5 years.