Due Diligence in practice: Insights from EUDR preparedness exercise in the coffee sector (report 1)

The EU Competent Authorities of Belgium and France and a Belgian operator in the coffee sector conducted an EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) preparedness exercise, facilitated by the European Forest Institute (EFI) through its Technical Facility on Deforestation-Free Value Chains. The voluntary exercise simulated checks on the operator’s due diligence system (DD-System) and four coffee shipments, using real-world data and information to replicate actual checks as closely as possible. The exercise aimed to help identify challenges, viable solutions and best practices to ensure smooth implementation of the EUDR, and provide recommendations that could benefit all interested stakeholders.

In addition to assessing the operator’s DD-System in practice, the exercise also served to assess the ease of using the EU Information System for transferring geolocation data and resolving any issues relating to data compilation, formatting and completeness.