Many countries throughout the world have made major efforts over the past decade to limit deforestation, for example, by implementing measures to promote transparency in the supply chain, yet deforestation and forest degradation continue at an alarming rate.
In June 2023, the EU published Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation, also known as the EU Deforestation Regulation.
The regulation concerns seven commodities, namely cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya and wood, as well as their derivatives (Annex 1 of the regulation), and it is based first and foremost on a prohibition laid down in Article 3:
“Relevant commodities and relevant products shall not be placed or made available on the market or exported unless all the following conditions are fulfilled:
a) they are deforestation-free;
b) they have been produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production; and
c) they are covered by a due diligence statement.”
Operators and traders will need to adopt due diligence to envision whether in-scope products are `deforestation-free”, meaning that they have been produced on land that has neither been deforested after 31 December 2020 nor that has seen primary and naturally growing forests converted into a plantation. It will also be necessary to guarantee that the products comply with all relevant applicable laws in the country of production.
A country benchmarking system will be implemented to classify countries according to several criteria. This covers their contributions to the deforestation and forest degradation linked to the relevant commodities and their attempts to address these issues. Three categories - high risk, standard risk, and low risk - will be used to classify countries. Depending on the level of risk, operators and traders will be subject to different levels of due diligence duties.
To the cosmetic industry, these measures will primarily affect raw material suppliers. However, cosmetic manufacturers will still have the duty to ensure the compliance of their suppliers. In practical terms, this entails gathering data to ensure that in-scope raw materials (for example, palm oil, cocoa butter...) comply with these requirements.
At the beginning of October, given the complexity of the text to be implemented, the insufficient progress in preparing operators and the diversity of the international stakeholders concerned, the European Commission proposed postponing the date of entry into force of the text by one year. This proposal has now been agreed by the European Parliament and the Council.If this agreement is formally adopted by the end of 2024, the Regulation will become applicable:
• On 30 December 2025 for large companies and
• On 30 June 2026 for micro and small companies
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