Post: Compliance with the European Deforestation regulations for plantations in South Africa

September 26, 2024

Compliance with the European Deforestation regulations for plantations in South Africa

What are the European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR)?

In 2020 the European Commission approved the European Green Deal, which pledged that Europe will be climate neutral by 2050. As part of this set of policy initiatives, the European Union passed legislation requiring certain commodities and products traded in EU countries be able to demonstrate that their production is not associated with deforestation. These include palm oil, soy, wood, cattle, cocoa, coffee and rubber and their derivatives. This also applies to the supply chains that export to the EU.

Compliance timeframes

Full compliance for large scale enterprises is required by the 30th of December 2024, while small and medium-sized companies have until the 30th of June 2025 to comply. However, it is not all plain sailing for the European Union.

The United States have supported Asian, South American and African countries around concerns that the EUDR would unfairly increase costs the administrative burdens imposed on smallholder farmers.

To add to this, there is even dissent from within the EU where the agricultural ministers from 20 countries have called for delays in implementation.

However, for affected South African companies it would be advisable to prepare as if the implementation deadlines will be met. This means that any timber-based products that have any part of their supply chain in the EU will need to complete a risk assessment to demonstrate that the risk of deforestation is negligible, supply geolocation and harvest period data and pass this data along the supply chain.

Operators at the end of the supply chain, within and EU country, are required to enter this data into an EU data base.

How does PEFC certification help with EUDR compliance?

Voluntary certification schemes cannot offer automatic compliance with EUDR because the legal liability always rests with the Operators and Traders. The approach taken by PEFC is to align standards to the EUDR and supply tools and systems to facilitate reporting. These will include systems to assist supply chain actors in their due diligence, risk assessment and data requirements.

SAFAS, the PEFC National Governing Body for South Africa, will make these systems available to certified organisations in South Africa.

With regard to the alignment of standards; PEFC has recently approved an additional voluntary module to the Chain of Custody Standard (PEFC ST 2002: 2020). A Chain of Custody certified company that is exporting PEFC timber into the European Union can add this EUDR module to the scope of their certification. When implementing the Due Diligence System (DDS) in the EUDR module there are an expanded series of tables which lead to the supplier’s risk status. If negligible risk is indicated for all categories and you can make the output claims of EUDR compliance.

If not, then you need to take action to mitigate the risks in your supply chain until negligible risk is achieved.

Risks of implementation in the South African Context Given South Africa’s long history of protecting its natural forests, demonstrating the absence of deforestation for EUDR compliance should not be a substantial issue.

However, there are a few risks that have been raised by organisations attempting to prepare for compliance. These include;

Sharing the geolocation and harvesting date data with the downstream supply chain actors is a fundamental requirement of the EU regulations. This requirement is potentially a cause of concern for suppliers because the next organisation in the supply chain might be competing for the timber.
How timber flows and reporting will be managed in a variety of contexts is potentially problematical. For example, latency and measurement unit incompatibility’ where companies are managing chain of custody with a credit balance system.
Small-scale growers and the network of agents and contractors that attend them might find it difficult to complying with the requirement for geo-location.

As is invariably the case, when any new regulatory requirements are introduced anxiety levels are raised and alarm bells sound, but after a short period of time it becomes business as usual. SAFAS is available to make this transition smoother. Timber growers and other businesses in the supply chain that may be affected by the EUDR, certified or not, are welcome to contact SAFAS for more information on EUDR compliance.

You can visit the PEFC website for more information on EUDR compliance.