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13 September 2024 EU Deforestation Regulation

Orbify offers a comprehensive suite of satellite data-powered tools designed for nature conservation, and anti-deforestation compliance. Our mission is to empower companies to navigate complex regulatory landscapes with ease, ensuring that their operations are compliant and transparent.

The EUDR is approaching

The EUDR marks a critical development in global environmental legislation. This regulation targets commodities linked to deforestation and forest degradation, prohibiting their placement on the EU market or their export from the EU. With compliance deadlines looming, companies must ensure their supply chains are fully transparent and deforestation-free to avoid severe penalties.

This regulation emerged in response to alarming statistics, such as the loss of 420 million hectares of forest to deforestation between 1990 and 2020, which significantly contributes to climate change and biodiversity loss. The EUDR seeks to address these issues by reducing the EU's influence on global deforestation, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting biodiversity. 

Most companies must comply with the EUDR by December 30, 2024. However, there is an extended compliance deadline of June 30, 2025, for certain companies. This extension applies to operators that were established as small or micro-undertakings before December 30, 2020.

How Orbify can help

Orbify automates the complex process of achieving EUDR compliance by providing a comprehensive tool designed to address the regulation’s stringent requirements. Our solution, Compliance - Orb, is using satellite data to give businesses an in-depth, actionable view of their supply chain activities. This enables companies to proactively manage their compliance efforts, ensuring they meet all regulatory demands well before the deadlines.

Comprehensive EUDR solution from Orbify

Compliance - Orb is a robust, all-in-one solution that helps businesses navigate the EUDR landscape with precision and ease. Here’s how our key features can support your compliance journey:

Plot Overview: With Compliance - Orb, you can easily access detailed information about specific plots of land that are connected with your supply chain. This feature provides a quick overview of the characteristics of each plot. This ensures you have all the necessary data at your fingertips, making compliance evaluation straightforward and efficient.

Deforestation Risk Level Assessment: Orbify’s EUDR solution is assessing the deforestation administration risk level using a three-tier benchmarking system as outlined in EUDR Article 29. This system classifies commodity-producing countries and regions as low, standard, or high risk. This classification helps regulators target checks on products from high-risk countries and allows operators to undertake simplified due diligence for products from low-risk countries. 

Forest Map Quality Screening: Another feature of Compliance Orb is the Forest Map Quality Screening. This screening identifies map limitations affecting the project plot, such as small project areas, steep slopes, and regions with low canopy cover trees. This assessment ensures accurate representation and addresses the challenges posed by the dataset's inherent constraints. Additionally, Sentinel 2 time series data is included to facilitate the visual examination of plot activities. Any inaccuracies in the map are reviewed in the forest map quality screening section, with flagged limitations requiring further accuracy checks.

Deforestation-Free Compliance Assessment: To comply with the EUDR’s deforestation-free requirements, it’s essential to monitor both historical and current forest cover on your plots. The platform uses the Global Forest Change dataset to provide detailed information on the location and date of significant deforestation events, helping to identify whether forest loss occurred before 2020 (compliant) or after (non-compliant). 

Verification of Commodity Plots: Compliance Orb employs various datasets and models to detect plantations, verify commodity production within the project area, and signal instances of conversion to agriculture.

Risk of non-compliance with local laws: Our platform also includes an evaluation for compliance with local laws (Article 10). Datasets for Indigenous territories and protected areas are critical for identifying whether activities within a region require additional permissions to meet legal standards. This ensures that your project is compliant not only with EUDR regulations but also with local laws.

EUDR Risk Assessment: The EUDR risk assessment uses various indicators and datasets to evaluate deforestation and forest degradation within and around the project area. Key metrics include:

• Tree Cover Loss by Dominant Driver: This dataset highlights the primary causes of tree cover loss within each 10 km grid of the project area, detailing the extent and severity of forest loss from 2001 to 2022.

• Deforestation and degradation: This examines deforestation and degradation within 100 meters of the project boundary, identifying whether plot activities lead to deforestation beyond the established boundaries. Data from the Tropical Moist Forest dataset (2020-2021) is utilized for this analysis.

• Nearby Deforestation: Projects located within 5 km of deforestation hotspots or regions of significant forest loss are subject to heightened scrutiny. Orbify helps businesses navigate these zones by identifying potential risks that could impact surrounding forests.

Supplier Data Collection

With Compliance Orb you can easily gather data from your suppliers using a convenient and shareable link, ensuring efficient and accurate compliance data collection.

Getting Ready

With only four months left until the EUDR compliance deadline, now is the time to ensure your business is fully prepared. Orbify’s comprehensive platform is designed to make your compliance journey as seamless as possible. 

For more detailed information, you can download our EUDR guide, or if you’d like personalized assistance, book a demo with our expert team to learn how Orbify can help you achieve and maintain EUDR compliance.