New guidance from WCF and the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) helps companies, governments and supply chain actors improve the quality, transparency and comparability of deforestation risk assessment across cocoa landscapes.
The World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), in collaboration with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and a multi-stakeholder taskforce, has published a new Active Deforestation Risk Assessment (DRA) Methodology to support more consistent, transparent and evidence-based approaches to deforestation risk assessment across cocoa supply chains.
As governments, markets and supply chains place greater emphasis on deforestation due diligence, companies and producing-country stakeholders face increasing pressure to improve the quality, comparability and transparency of risk assessment approaches. At present, methodologies, datasets and verification standards often vary significantly across actors and landscapes, while the accuracy, transparency and comparability of some approaches can be difficult to assess consistently.
The methodology was developed to help address those challenges through a more structured and transparent process that combines science-based analysis, local context, verification procedures and documented judgment.
Developed through a multi-stakeholder process convened by WCF and technically led by the Alliance, the methodology reflects input from cocoa companies, producing-country stakeholders, technical experts, compliance providers and public authorities. It is intended to provide a practical and operationally usable framework for assessing deforestation risk in complex cocoa landscapes.
The Active DRA methodology provides step-by-step guidance covering:
- Plot data quality assurance
- Forest baseline definition and validation
- Deforestation overlay analysis
- Legal zoning checks
- Verification procedures
- Mitigation and corrective actions
The methodology includes procedures for assessing data quality, verification and, where appropriate, the use of multiple sources of information to strengthen confidence in assessment outcomes. Rather than relying on a single dataset or analytical method as automatically decisive, the framework encourages actors to assess evidence, document judgments and undertake further verification where needed.
The methodology can also support more consistent approaches to land-use change GHG emissions monitoring and accounting through improved forest baseline definition, mapping and data quality procedures.
The methodology is intended as a practical reference for cocoa companies, governments and third-party monitoring providers. It does not replace national regulations, company due diligence systems, legal advice or local verification processes, and it does not guarantee regulatory compliance. Instead, it is designed to complement existing systems and support more transparent, explainable and comparable approaches to decision-making.
By improving verification processes and the treatment of uncertainty, the methodology can help reduce the risk of decisions being made on incomplete, conflicting or low-quality evidence in complex cocoa landscapes.
The publication forms part of WCF's broader Regulatory Assurance and Standards workstream, which also includes work on datasets accuracy assessments, protected area boundaries assessments and land-use change GHG accounting.
The methodology, together with the findings of the datasets accuracy assessment and protected area boundaries assessment, will be made publicly available by August. WCF members are also invited to participate in a member-exclusive webinar.
