Using Satellite Imagery to Monitor Deforestation in Supply Chains [Look back - 2024 Update]

2024 Update: I wrote this blog post way back in 2015. A lot has happened since then: the EU Deforestation Regulation requires the approach we pioneered in 2015 to be applied to all imports of beef, leather, wood, paper, soy, cocoa, coffee, palm oil and rubber starting in 2025. Read through to see what's changed since we started mapping supply chains to prevent deforestation.

The sugar in your coffee, the palm oil in your shampoo, the leather in your shoes – any of these might come from plantations on recently deforested land. The sheer number of small farms around the world makes it very difficult to know if a specific product is tied to deforestation. Take leather: in Brazil alone there are over one million cattle ranches, many carved out of virgin forest, all of which supply hides to tanneries around the world via intermediaries. A convergence of new technologies is finally making it possible to know whether a product was sourced in a way that contributed to deforestation:

• Mobile Traceability: The first step is to find out precisely where things come from. In the past this could only be achieved using printed barcodes read by custom scanners in industrial settings. Today, smartphones and survey apps such as the free Open Data Kit allow anyone, anywhere to capture the location of commodities as they change hands from farmer to trader to processor, etc... Buyers and sellers can even create electronic receipts by signing with their fingers on the device's touch screen!

• Enterprise Social Networks: Before the social web, companies would have found it too resource-intensive to keep track of hundreds of thousands of suppliers in their extended supply chain. Today multi-enterprise social networks like Sourcemap connect all of the companies in a supply chain - no matter how small or remote - to ensure an unbroken chain of custody from raw materials to finished goods.

• Satellite Imagery: Projects like the Global Forest Watch measure deforestation through satellite imagery processed to highlight changes in forest cover. By combining the real-time satellite feed with a map of where products come from, it becomes possible to measure the likelihood of sustainable (or unsustainable) farming practices and more effectively target interventions on the ground.

At Sourcemap we have integrated Open Data Kit and Global Forest Watch into the first GIS-enabled Enterprise Social Network for monitoring deforestation in supply chains. The platform is being pilot-tested in environmentally sensitive regions of northern Brazil. Want to find out more about this and our other platforms for traceability, monitoring and evaluation? 

Since this blog post, Sourcemap has rolled out large-scale polygon mapping for cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy, rubber, wood/paper and beef and leather across all of the in-scope regions of the EUDR. We've learned a log along the way:

GPS mapping data quality varies widely 

Depending on how long your suppliers have been mapping farms and forests, they will have varying coverage and accuracy of mapping. Now that every single shipment into the EU requires a map of all parcels of land that contributed, it's essential to have accurate and complete mapping data. We introduced an automated geo-polygon validation to eliminate hundreds of hours of back-and-forth by giving suppliers instant feedback on their mapping data so that they can quickly get back to work.

Satellite deforestation analysis is not enough

Despite advances in remote sensing, the accuracy of most satellite assessments of deforestation ranges from +-5% to +- 20%. Companies should nevertheless expect to discover a number of parcels of land where deforestation exceeds the margins. The only way to clear these parcels for shipments is to obtain additional evidence, usually in the form of audits, certificates, and other registrations showing that the farm was created prior to the EUDR cutoff date.

Plausibility

Significant leaps have been made in end-to-end transaction traceability, so that it's possible to account for every kilogram of raw material purchased. The EUDR requires that a running assessment be performed to ensure that the volumes of product imported are reasonably equivalent to the surface area of forest and farmland mapped.

Legality Assessment

Deforestation is not the only risk facing in-scope commodities for EUDR: there are endemic issues facing producers such as environmental degradation, worker health and safety, land rights, conflict and corruption. The EUDR requires an annual legality assessment to be performed on all suppliers of in-scope commodities to ensure that they have the appropriate policies in place to tackle a suite of assorted issues, together with an assurance program.

Interested in finding out more? Contact our experts for an overview of the Sourcemap EUDR solution.