Overview
The EUDR aims to keep products linked to forest loss out of the EU market. If a commodity such as cocoa or timber was grown on recently cleared forest, it cannot be sold in the EU, and companies have to prove where it came from.
The regulation rests on geolocation. Operators must record the exact coordinates of the land where the commodity was produced, then run due diligence to confirm that land was not deforested after the cut-off date.
The commodities in scope
How compliance works
A company placing a covered product on the EU market files a due diligence statement. It ties the goods to the plots of land they came from through geolocation coordinates and assesses the risk that those plots were recently deforested. Goods that cannot be shown to be deforestation-free are not allowed onto the market.
The EUDR is one of the targeted laws that put due diligence to work on a specific harm. It sits alongside the broader CSDDD, which sets a general human-rights and environmental duty, while the EUDR focuses sharply on deforestation in a defined set of commodities.
Note: general educational information, not legal advice. Check the official source before relying on it.