EUDR Update December 2023

As communicated through the July and September newsletters, The new EU legislation requires all cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soya, rubber, and wood products imported into, or exported from, the EU to be deforestation-free by December 2024. 

Non-compliance with EUDR carries the risk of costly fines, as well as a loss of market access and reputational risk to ECOM. For more information about the EUDR regulation please see the article from our July newsletter here and the September one here.

To understand further about the EU Deforestation Regulation, check out the below video! 

(While cocoa centric, the exact same concepts apply to coffee.)

Since September, ECOM teams have been working hard to assess our data and processes in order to ensure EUDR readiness. The EU has also been developing further information for the industry and they have published their latest FAQ’s this month. 

• - The latest EUDR FAQs were published December 11th. Please find the link to it here. 

• - Last week, the EU Forest Observatory went live - view here. This non-legally binding tool can be used to assess the presence of forests and to assess certain trade patterns.
  • - The use of these maps will not automatically ensure conditions of the Regulation are complied with, but it will be a tool to help companies, for example to assess the deforestation risk. Companies will still be obliged to carry out due diligence.
  • - As confirmed by the EU, these maps will be non-mandatory, non-exclusive, and non-legally binding.

• - The EU still confirms they plan to publish their legally binding official EU Guidance in Q1 of 2024. We will share this when it becomes available. 

• - As shared in the September Newsletter, ECOM’s initial EUDR testing is underway in three origins, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Vietnam. 

We would like to share a big thank you to all of the individuals in these origins who have participated so actively in this initial testing exercise. As the first countries, they are playing a very important role to help us refine our readiness testing process.

In early 2024, we will be in touch with more countries to expand the testing across ECOM. 

Everyone in ECOM has an important role to play together to ensure ECOM’s EUDR readiness, and we greatly appreciate the engagement and dedication of time and resources across the company so far. 

Any questions please reach out to esgcompliance@ecomtrading.com

Thank you, 

The First Mile Team