The EUDR promotes the consumption of deforestation-free products to vastly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while assisting the fight against global biodiversity loss. It provides assurance that the EU will not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation.
Organizations marketing, importing or exporting to or from the EU any items in the following list, including derived products, must be EUDR compliant. This guarantees that their commodities are not associated with deforestation, forest degradation or breaches in local environmental or social legislation in the country of production.
The EUDR covers:
- Cattle – live cattle, meat and leather
- Cocoa – cocoa beans, paste, butter, powder and chocolate products
- Coffee – roasted, unroasted and decaffeinated coffee, and substitutes containing any proportion of coffee
- Oil palm – nuts, kernels, palm oil, glycerol and palm oil-derived fatty acids
- Rubber – natural rubber, gums and all articles of vulcanized rubber, whether hard or not, including tires and clothing
- Soya – soya beans, meal oil and residues, including oilcake
- Wood – logs, processed wood, wooden furniture, paper and packaging
The primary responsibility for EUDR compliance lies with the organization placing the commodity on the EU market or exporting it. This organization must follow due diligence, transparently and informatively, along the supply chain.
Consequences for noncompliance include hefty fines, the confiscation of products/revenue and temporary exclusion from the market.
The EUDR comes into effect on December 30, 2026, for larger companies and June 30, 2027, for smaller ones. It covers commodities produced on land not subject to deforestation after December 31, 2020.