New EU deforestation law: A 5-step guide to giving deforestation the chop

The EU's new deforestation law requires companies to issue due-diligence statements for products like coffee, cocoa, and wood to ensure they did not cause deforestation after 31 December 2020. While the law addresses demand-side pressures, the Tropical Forest Alliance proposes a 'Smart Mix' of five measures—including EU legislation, partnerships with producer countries, dialogue with other consumer nations, financial steering, and robust verification systems—to prevent the exclusion of smallholders and the diversion of unsustainable goods to other markets.

• The EU's new legislation requires companies to verify and issue a due-diligence statement confirming that products such as wood, cocoa, and coffee placed on the EU market did not cause deforestation or forest degradation after 31 December 2020; products linked to deforestation are banned from EU import and export.
• The Tropical Forest Alliance proposes a 'Smart Mix' of five interrelated measures to address deforestation drivers: EU due-diligence legislation, partnerships with producer countries to improve production standards, dialogue with other consumer countries to prevent market diversion, steering finance toward sustainable activities, and developing consistent risk assessment and reporting systems.
• There are risks that the legislation could lead to the decoupling of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and smallholders from supply chains if they lack the resources and technical capacity to comply, or that the benchmarking system might penalize sustainable suppliers in high-risk countries if it does not operate at sub-national or provincial levels.
• Critics of the law have highlighted the absence of certain ecosystems, specifically the Brazilian Cerrado, and a lack of standardization regarding human and land rights, such as Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

APA

Hurd, J. (2022). New EU deforestation law: A 5-step guide to giving deforestation the chop. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/deforestation-law-5-point-plan/

Chicago

Hurd, Jack. New EU deforestation law: A 5-step guide to giving deforestation the chop. World Economic Forum, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/deforestation-law-5-point-plan/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hurd |first1=Jack |title=New EU deforestation law: A 5-step guide to giving deforestation the chop |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=20 December 2022 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/deforestation-law-5-point-plan/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hurd2022new, author = {Hurd, Jack}, title = {{New EU deforestation law: A 5-step guide to giving deforestation the chop}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2022}, month = dec, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/deforestation-law-5-point-plan/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }