UK retailers urge ministers to align with EU on new ‘deforestation-free’ rules

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Supermarkets have warned the UK government that efforts to rid their supply chains of products linked to deforestation will be derailed unless it aligns with new EU rules due to take effect at the end of 2024.

In a letter seen by the Financial Times, retailers including Tesco and Marks and Spencer on Thursday urged environment secretary Thérèse Coffey to speed up legislation that will force companies to ensure their direct and indirect suppliers have “deforestation-free supply chains”.

The supermarkets, which also included Asda, Lidl and Wm Morrison, said they had 15 months to meet Brussels’ new regulations aimed at curbing the destruction of the world’s forests or risk their ability to export British-made produce to Europe.

From the end of next year, EU countries will refuse imports of goods linked to deforestation, including soya, cocoa, coffee, palm oil and wood. Under the same new rules, companies operating in the bloc will be legally obliged to prove that their goods have not been produced on land that has been deforested since 2020.

Under the 2021 Environment Act, the post-Brexit legal basis for environmental protection, the UK government pledged to ban the use of commodities linked to “illegal deforestation” as defined by producer countries.

However, the secondary legislation that would compel companies to comply has yet to be introduced.

“Our British supply chains remain uniquely exposed because of the lack of a legislative process in the UK,” the supermarkets wrote, adding that contributors of raw materials to their supply chains were “unwilling to provide the necessary transparency” without a legal requirement.

The retailers called for the swift implementation of the legislation, “to remove the remaining barriers to transparency and to level the playing field throughout the sector”, warning that further delay could hit exports.

Will Schreiber, a spokesperson for the group of retailers and director at climate consultancy 3Keel, said it was “not cost-effective for a British business to have two different due diligence systems”.

“There is a willingness to have the sector respond to this and have the same rule book apply to everyone,” he added.

Soya is one of the crops that contributes most to global deforestation and is primarily used in animal feed. In the UK, the feed industry is not legally obliged to disclose which importer it procured its soya from, or which country. 

In August, the Agricultural Industries Confederation, a trade body, began a consultation into its sustainability standards for deforestation, which will inform an industry-led soya transition.

While the EU requires every single material to be verified deforestation-free, the AIC has proposed a “mass balance” accounting system that does not require a single soyabean to have physical verification.

Environmental groups have warned that the divergence in standards could leave the UK a “dumping ground” for soya that is turned away from European markets from the end of 2024.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the AIC were contacted for comment.