Urgent collective action required to achieve 2025 deforestation-free commitments, says new report

A new report on palm oil and soy supply chains, from sustainability consultancy 3Keel, highlights significant progress on deforestation-free commitments but emphasises that coordinated and collective efforts are now essential to fully address deforestation within these supply chains. The study, “Tracing Progress: 2024 Insights into Palm and Soy Supply Chains,” shows that meaningful business investments have driven significant improvements in deforestation-free sourcing, but finds that isolated actions are approaching their limits and rapid action is needed in order to make progress in advance of deadlines that many companies have set to be deforestation-free by 2025.

Key achievements include:

• Strong advancement in palm oil, with verified deforestation- and conversion-free (vDCF) volumes rising from 62% in 2019 to over 87% in 2024, demonstrating effective action in the sector.
• Notable, yet insufficient, progress in soy supply chains, where verified volumes increased from just over 13% to approximately 22%, indicating significant challenges due to complex, indirect sourcing routes and embedded uses.

The report draws on evidence from six years of a market-level assessment that highlights a critical insight: by focusing on the vDCF status of soy volumes from their five largest suppliers, companies could make substantial progress toward deforestation targets – surpassing 50% verification if all these major suppliers shifted their sourcing practices.

Despite this progress, the study stresses the urgent need for strengthened regulatory frameworks and broader collaborative actions. Key recommendations from the report include:

• Policymakers must ensure that EUDR is not delayed or weakened. Without a market-level requirement, companies will be unable to transition all of their supply chains while remaining competitive.
• Businesses should leverage existing progress by continuing to engage their largest suppliers in targeted and collaborative strategies, recognising that individual company efforts alone are insufficient to fully achieve vDCF goals.
• Civil society groups should support refined and consistent standards for public claims, facilitating transparent communication of genuine sustainability advancements.

“We can see clearly that while businesses have invested significantly and delivered commendable progress, isolated efforts are reaching their limits,” noted 3Keel’s Programme Lead Sian Allen. “Reaching fully sustainable and deforestation-free supply chains demands collective action across sectors and stakeholders.”