Assessing tropical deforestation in Germany’s agricultural commodity supply chains

Chris West; Simon Croft; Rhian Ebrey; Joe Simpson

doi:https://doi.org/10.48650/PV1P-Q331

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Assessing tropical deforestation in Germany’s agricultural commodity supply chains

Germany’s trade and consumption of key commodities such as palm oil and soy is linked to significant deforestation risk in tropical and subtropical regions. This report, commissioned by the German government, offered key insights and recommended actions to facilitate the implementation of deforestation-free supply chains in the country.

Chris West, Simon Croft, Rhian Ebrey, Joe Simpson / Published on 29 January 2024

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Citation

West, C., Croft, S., Titley, M., Ebrey, R., Gollub, E., Simpson, J., & Smythe, J. (2022). Assessing tropical deforestation risk in Germany’s agricultural commodity supply chains. Trase. https://doi.org/10.48650/PV1P-Q331.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.48650/PV1P-Q331

The Amsterdam Declarations Partnership (ADP) is a multilateral effort by ten European countries to eliminate deforestation related to agricultural commodity production by 2025. This Trase report is intended to help Germany in its efforts to meet the ADP commitments and prepare for new EU legislation which aims to regulate deforestation-free products.

Key findings

From 2016-2018, 94% of Germany’s directly imported deforestation risk was linked to just five key commodities: soy, coffee, palm oil, cocoa and cattle. More than 90% of this comes from nine countries, including Brazil Colombia, and Indonesia.
Deforestation risk in Germany’s supply chains has varied over time, but has recently begun to emerge in particular hotspots, such as Colombia.
Deforestation risk can be concentrated in particular areas within hotspots: more than half of Brazilian soy deforestation risk comes from just three municipalities in the Matopiba region.
As Germany is an important hub for trade and processing, adjusting for re-exports lowered deforestation risk exposure by around 20% overall, but this impact varied between commodities. For instance, making this adjustment halved the deforestation risk from cocoa and coffee.
Germany’s deforestation risk is larger than for France and Italy.

Aerial view of a palm oil plantation. The bottom two thirds of the image shows regular planted trees; across the top third a wavy forest borders cuts off the pattern. — Aerial view of a palm oil plantation in Thailand.

Photo: Kanok Sulaiman / Getty Images

Recommendations

The report offered six recommendations for policymakers:

Germany should establish an ongoing and annual monitoring system for deforestation exposure.
Results from this monitoring system should be discussed at commodity roundtables, such as the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO).
The results should also be discussed with stakeholders in production regions.
Germany should continue its work with other regions of consumption to take joint steps to reduce supply chain risk.
Further assessments should be made of commodities which are important in Germany’s indirect risk exposure, such as cassava and cotton.
Methodological enhancements should be prioritised for future assessments.