The European Forest Institute (EFI) is an international research body supporting policy on forests and sustainable value chains across Europe and beyond.
EFI implements several EU-funded programmes focused on providing technical support to commodity-producing countries, including cocoa origins, to develop and implement national policies and tools aimed at achieving sustainable commodity production. EFI collaborated with the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and others in creating WCF’s Deforestation Risk Assessment Methodology to help cocoa and chocolate companies prepare for compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
Adeline Dontenville is a programme manager for EFI focused on sustainable cocoa. Here, she shares her perspective on the most pressing forest-related issues in the cocoa sector and how we can continue making progress.
Cocoa companies, farming organisations and other supply chain actors are committed to ending cocoa-linked deforestation – and a lot of progress has been made. What are the biggest remaining gaps from your perspective and how can we close them?
Indeed, a lot of progress has been made, especially with traceability. One of the challenges we still observe is the quality and coverage of traceability data. Because so much cocoa is sourced through the supply chain indirectly, there’s a real opportunity to close the traceability gap through collective action. In some countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon, both industry associations and governments are working together to build a common baseline of information about farms that will support robust due diligence – and we should do more of that.
The same is true for forest and land-use data. We need a common understanding of the definitions and metrics underlying deforestation data and analyses to build clear accountability. That’s exactly what the Deforestation Risk Assessment Methodology developed by WCF is helping with. Similarly, it’s been encouraging to see Côte d’Ivoire develop a 2020 national land cover map transparently and make it freely available. That type of initiative inspires other origin countries to develop or update robust national datasets. Some countries do not yet have high accuracy forest cover data aligned with EUDR definitions, and others lack updated and publicly available datasets on protected areas.
Right now, there is understandably intense focus on EUDR compliance in the cocoa sector. What else should the cocoa industry be focused on looking further out toward 2030?
There are a lot of headlines on EUDR presently, but we should not let that distract us. The objective and the overall requirements are not changing. What is interesting to me is how EUDR uses a mandatory framework to consolidate what cocoa companies and producing country governments have been working on voluntarily for 10 years. From the beginning, the cocoa industry has been supportive of EUDR and the regulatory certainty it will provide.
The voluntary frameworks underpinning the EUDR have paved the way for further progress, potentially easing the implementation of initiatives like the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). For example, if greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting can make use of deforestation data and polygons, it could simplify some aspects. Due diligence on challenging areas like child labour can build on years of efforts developing monitoring and remediation systems.
Looking further out toward 2030, I hope by then we have advanced from primarily a risk mitigation approach on deforestation to also reversing the effects of deforestation and contributing to restoring forests at a large scale. There are individual supply chain initiatives underway, but these have limited impact until we can reach a new level of collaborative action and work across larger landscapes.
One other risk that may not be getting enough attention so far is the next frontier of deforestation. The governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are making good progress towards building national cocoa traceability and forest monitoring systems. But deforestation is now moving into other countries in West Africa. That’s where most of the risk will be by 2030. So, there’s an important opportunity and necessity for cocoa companies to engage early and help those countries address that challenge.
What lessons has EFI learned from other commodities that would be helpful to the cocoa sector?
EFI has worked for many years to help tackle illegal timber, both through supporting the implementation of the EU timber regulation and Voluntary Partnerships Agreements between the EU and timber producing countries. One of the key things we have learned through that work is how important true multi-stakeholder engagement is. Yes, it is challenging to get everyone around the table and have real dialogue. But it is necessary to create transparency and drive progress in a sector. You need to make sure there is space for all actors to voice their concerns and act as watchdogs, as well. In this way, you build accountability that’s needed to achieve sustainability goals.
Both the private and the public sector play a role. The private sector can bring solid technical and scientific approaches, robust auditing, innovative technologies and more. The public sector is essential for levelling the playing field and providing the enabling policy and regulatory environment to facilitate compliance.
In the rubber sector, there is also something very interesting happening. We have seen a transparent and open approach by companies developing their compliance frameworks with the EUDR. When documents are made public and can be reviewed by peers, this leads to greater alignment, stronger credibility and greater cost effectiveness.
Collaborative action is key within and across sectors. Some will be ahead of others in certain areas. If we can all learn together, we can inspire one another and all get where we want to go more quickly.
