LO
Policy mandateProcess & self-service2023-05-31
The EU Deforestation Regulation obliges operators to prove their products are deforestation-free, including the geolocation of every plot where the commodities were produced
Procurement / supply chain specialistoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2023-05-31 · reported 2023-06-09
Evidence stage
Policy mandateRegulation, subsidy or public procurement is requiring or funding adoption — the mirror of a constraint. It shows adoption is being required, not that it has happened, so one mandate is never enough on its own; two independent ones are.
Tasks this bears on
Answering for who is in the chain
Proving where things came from — sanctions, forced labour, emissions, conflict minerals — and being able to show it rather than assert it.
New task✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
An EU regulation binding operators that place seven commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood — and products made from them on the EU market or export them. Article 4(1): operators shall exercise due diligence before placing products on the market in order to prove that they comply, and may not place them without a due diligence statement; Article 9(1)(d) requires the geolocation of all plots of land where the commodities were produced. As amended in December 2025, these obligations apply from 30 December 2026, later for micro and small operators, and downstream traders mainly keep supplier details and statement references. It creates the obligation to prove provenance for those commodities; it does not say who inside a company does the work.
What this means
For anyone selling these commodities into Europe, being able to show the exact plots they came from becomes a condition of trade. Collecting and defending that proof is work that did not exist in most buying teams a few years ago.
What it does not yet show
It covers seven commodities and applies from the end of 2026; it does not show how companies staff the work or whether it falls to procurement.
What you can check
Open Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on EUR-Lex and find Article 4(1), "Operators shall exercise due diligence in accordance with Article 8 prior to placing relevant products on the market".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 (deforestation-free products), as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 · verified 2026-09-27 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-27 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.