Fairtrade International updates coffee standards to meet or exceed the EU's non-deforestation regulations EUDR

Recently, Fairtrade International, a sustainability certification organization, is publishing its updated coffee standards to meet or exceed the requirements of the EU No deforestation regulations (EUDR).

Fairtrade International has maintained its mission to support small farmers around the world, so the new standard adds monitoring and reporting requirements for teams of certified coffee producers as well as coffee buyers and traders within the Fairtrade system. The standard, which will come into effect in 2026, will apply to all Fairtrade certified coffee, not just those shipped to the European Union.

In the new standard, risk assessments and preventive measures, such as the use of geolocation data and deforestation monitoring data, are implemented to enhance the prevention of deforestation. The project organization system is also required to have a plan to enable it to use the results of its risk assessment and monitoring to carry out prevention and mitigation activities. Geolocation data must also be provided to all farm units for forest cover loss monitoring and traceability. According to Fairtrade International, the new coffee standards are designed to provide guidance to about 600 coffee cooperatives, representing about 870000 coffee farmers who grow 1.1 million hectares to meet non-deforestation requirements.

In announcing the new standards, senior climate and environment customers of International Fair Trade said that at present, people are living in an era of climate crisis, and for farmers, the frequency and severity of climate change will have a serious impact and endanger their livelihoods. Major changes in the global food system are therefore essential. In addition, the standard requires producer cooperative system prevention and mitigation plans, including satellite-based deforestation monitoring promoted by Fairtrade, so Fairtrade recently hired a Dutch company, Satelligence, to provide satellite monitoring services, which got up early to implement satellite monitoring of the coffee supply chain in Honduras and Uganda in cooperation with a number of importers.

In addition, Fairtrade International said in a public statement that EUDR needs geographic location data, but Fairtrade standards go a step further, requiring producer organizations to collect this information, payer and carrier Fairtrade reports, and to share this information with producer organizations to prevent deforestation. The rule points out the principle of fairness and means that the responsibility for protecting the environment must be shared by all who produce it.

The EU's non-deforestation regulations (EUDR), issued in June 2023, are expected to be formally implemented by large European companies from December 2024 to January 2025, mainly to prevent deforestation related to many agricultural products imported from the European Union, including coffee. A number of countries and producers are already implementing a series of measures to ensure compliance with EU deforestation regulations.