Assessing the deforestation embodied in the European Union consumption and trade of forest risk commodities.

Deforestation and forest degradation, particularly in the tropics, are recognised as important drivers of global warming and biodiversity loss. Forest loss can be driven by several factors, including the expansion of agriculture and pastureland to produce commodities and agroforestry. 

On 29 June 2023, the European Union (EU) Regulation on deforestation-free products came into force, promoting the consumption of 'deforestation-free' products with the aim of reducing the EU's impact on global deforestation and forest degradation, as well as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. 

The Regulation states that products related to cattle, timber, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee and rubber must be produced on land that is free from deforestation, after 31 December 2020.  

In this contribution, we combine the use of statistics on agricultural and wood production, trade flow data, earth observation on land use change and deforestation, with physically based land footprint and a land use balance models to calculate the impacts embodied in EU bilateral trade and consumption of the selected forest risk commodities. Specifically, we evaluated the impact in terms of land area of forest biomass stocks displaced for the production and consumption of the commodities listed in the Deforestation Free Product Regulation.  

Our evaluation reveals that, in relative terms, the EU significantly contributes to the impacts linked to the production of cocoa and coffee. Soy, cattle, and palm oil emerge as the overall major contributors to deforestation embodied in the EU consumption and are globally responsible for most forest biomass loss.