Elsewhere in the world, forests are being cleared to produce agricultural products for consumption in the European Union (EU). To combat deforestation and forest degradation worldwide, the European Union adopted the Deforestation Regulation in June 2023. In addition to timber, the regulation covers soy, cocoa, coffee, cattle and rubber, as well as products made from them, such as furniture and seals.
To improve forest protection, agricultural products will have to show that they were produced without deforestation and forest damage by the end of 2024. This will be based on the HS code, which is the basic customs tariff number.
The ECLASS Environmental Footprint Working Group has already integrated to corresponding structures for the information required by the EU regulation into the ECLASS Standard, so that these can already be made available to users with ECLASS Release 15.0.
As a part of the Green Deal the EU wants to publish the new EU Deforestation Free Regulation (EUDR), so that the contents of the above mentioned products must be digitally labelled. ECLASS could solve this problem. Stefan Willms and Thorsten Kroke with support from IW expert Dr Adriana Neligan have had an initial brainstorming session in August 2024.
To give you a brief insight on what the new regulation is Dr Adriana Neligan has gathered some facts:
◼ The EUDR replaces the EU Timber Regulation, which has banned the import of illegally produced timber into the EU since 2010, and will also be significantly expanded to include more products and more companies. It is now about a ‘deforestation-free supply chain’ - unlike the EU Due Diligence Act (EU Supply Chain Act), which affects companies as a whole, this regulation is product-related.
◼ The EUDR stipulates a very strict due diligence procedure for companies that import products associated with a risk of deforestation. These include, for example, palm oil, timber, cocoa, coffee, leather, wood, pulp and furniture.
◼ According to EU estimates, this could increase costs by between 175 million and 2.6 billion euros, which could correspond to between 0.3 and 4.3 per cent of the input costs of companies, not only those based in the EU, but also multinational companies importing into the EU.
When a data standard such as ECLASS is being continuously developed up to version 14, this indicates a steady demand on the market. But what are the advantages and have they already arrived on the market? Josef Schmelter from Phoenix Contact, Peter Oel from Ingenieurbüro Peter Oel and Stefan Mülhens, Managing Director of AmpereSoft, discuss this and more.
What is PCF? What do the values mean? And how can ECLASS help? In an interview we ask these and other questions to Thorsten Kroke, the head of the ECLASS Head Office.
