Consultation Opportunity: Implementing Due Diligence on Forest Risk Commodities

The UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs conducted a consultation on secondary legislation to support implementation on the due diligence provisions in the Environment Act 2021. The due diligence provisions, contained in Schedule 17 of the Act, aim to impose due diligence obligations on companies which use a range of forest-risk commodities in their UK commercial activities. The consultation considered a range of issues, including :

• Which commodities should be in the scope of regulations;
• Which businesses should be subject to due diligence requirements;
• The nature of due diligence obligations and reporting;
• Enforcement obligations.

Due diligence provisions in the Environment Act 2021 also anticipate companies should be able to show products have been produced in compliance with laws relating to land ownership and use in the country of production.

In its response to the consultation, FPP outlined its key concerns and recommendations for enhancing protection of indigenous peoples’ rights under the legislation. In particular, it recommended a broad commodity scope that captures as many forest risk commodities as possible within the shortest possible implementation period, strong traceability, risk assessment, risk mitigation and reporting requirements, engagement with communities affected or likely to be affected by illegal deforestation and rights violations and a duty to ensure compliance with customary tenure rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. FPP also recommended the establishment of an independent, impartial, transparent and well-resourced enforcement authority with strong monitoring, investigative and sanctioning powers and the ability to receive and act upon third party complaints, including from affected indigenous peoples and local communities.  

See FPP's full consultation response here 

In order to facilitate the submission of responses from organisations, individuals and communities from outside the UK (in countries of production), the UK Forest NGO Coalition arranged informal translation of the consultation documents into several languages. Please find copies of these (plus the English original) here.

Please see related documents in French, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese and English here:

          Consultation Letter: Français, Español, Português, Bahasa Indonesia, English 

          Consultation Document: Français, Español, Português, Bahasa Indonesia, English