Blended

Training programme for Deforestation-Free Supply Chains in Europe – EMMA4EU

The European Commission has recently approved the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), to ban the import of forest risk commodities produced on land (deforested after 2020). The EMMA4EU programme (2023-2026) is connecting different disciplines and sectors (profit + non-profit) to develop a training programme for a new profession: the “Deforestation-Free Supply Chains Manager”.

Organised by Wageningen Academy, Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group & Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group
Venue Campus Wageningen University & Research

This training programme will run from 2023 to 2026.

Registration is not open for this training programme.

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The programme will:

  • Deliver a ECTS accredited and micro-credential DFSC e-learning training course for DFSC managers;
  • Deliver a DFSC Specialisation school and internships for DFSC managers;
  • Deliver a vocational training on Supply Chain Risk and the EUDRs;
  • Develop a EMMA4EU Alliance and platform (a membership-based network);
  • Organise 4 national DFSC Awareness Workshops

Coordinated by:

Additional information

Deforestation significantly contributes to climate change and biodiversity loss in tropical countries. The primary driver of this deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land for producing specific commodities such as cattle, wood, palm oil, soy, cocoa, coffee, leather and rubber (the so-called “forest-risk commodities” – FRCs). According to the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020, an estimated 420 million hectares of forest were deforested worldwide between 1990 and 2020, with a rate of 10 million hectares per year from 2015 to 2020.

The European Union (EU) is the second-largest importer of commodity-driven deforestation and is responsible for 16% of the global embedded deforestation. Efforts to reduce such rates face many challenges, such as lack of transparency, limited practical effectiveness, and conceptual difficulties regarding terminology and definitions. Existing regulatory mechanisms need to be more cohesive and effective.

To overcome these challenges, the European Commission (EC) has recently published the Deforestation-free Products Regulation, which seeks to ban imports and exports from the EU of FRCs produced on deforested or degraded land after 2020.There needs to be more coverage in EU higher level and adult education and training institutions and their curricula of topics related to and including this new regulation and associated policies and tools. This challenges the path to successful implementation of the regulation. Public, private and tertiary sector actors in the EU dealing with FRCs need to be prepared and equipped for a deforestation-free future.

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