Fourteen per cent of the world’s most influential forest-risk companies have cited the EU Deforestation Regulation in deforestation commitments, with advocates saying the data proves the law is already changing corporate behaviour before enforcement comes into effect. That is according to Global Canopy’s Forest 500 Report 2026, the 12th annual assessment of 500 companies across nine commodity supply chains, published as the European Commission prepares its mandatory simplification review, due in weeks.
The report, which analysed more than 270,000 publicly available data points across beef, cocoa, coffee, leather, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber, soy and timber, found that 68 companies directly named the EUDR as a driver for traceability actions taken in 2025. Among those citing the regulation were Domino’s Pizza, Italian confectionery giant Ferrero and Brazilian meat packer FriGol, with more than a quarter of the 500 companies reporting new supply chain actions that had not appeared in the previous year’s disclosures.
“The key takeaway is that it’s working — it’s appearing in lots of company reporting, with 68 companies in our assessment citing it in regard to deforestation commitments, especially with traceability,” said Chloe Rollscane, a research associate at Global Canopy. “Even though the EUDR is not in place yet, it’s obvious that companies are getting ready for it.”
Speaking to Reuters, Global Canopy Executive Director Niki Mardas argued the data presented EU lawmakers with a clear case for holding firm on the regulation, with the Commission facing calls from industry to dilute its scope ahead of the review deadline. “The EUDR has succeeded in steering business expectations, galvanising investments and driving supply chain action by some of the most influential companies in the deforestation economy,” Mardas wrote.
Supply chain traceability, which is the central compliance requirement under the EUDR and requires companies to trace commodities to the exact production plot, improved across eight of the nine commodities assessed, with only beef bucking the trend. The regulation is set to apply to large EU operators from 30 December 2026 and to small and micro enterprises from 30 June 2027, following two consecutive 12-month postponements driven by IT system failures and sustained pressure from trading partners, including the United States.
Of the 500 companies assessed, just 19, or four per cent, were classified as “leaders” with strong commitments and significantly stronger implementation than their peers, with Nestlé the most frequently cited benchmark. The company’s own public disclosures show that 96.7 per cent of its primary supply chains across meat, palm oil, pulp and paper, soy, sugar, cocoa and coffee were deforestation-free at the end of 2025, achieved through satellite monitoring, on-the-ground partner assessments and sourcing from low-risk regions.
Just 29 per cent of the 500 companies held deforestation commitments covering all commodities they source or produce, whilst only 120 firms publicly reported that more than half of their volumes were deforestation and conversion-free for at least one commodity. A cohort of 24 “persistent laggards” has never published a single deforestation commitment across more than a decade of assessments, while 14, including Nike and Brazilian meatpacker Minerva, actively backtracked on existing commitments last year.
The report also flagged the leather industry as a particular concern, with research by Earthsight finding that seven of the ten Brazilian states recording the highest tree cover loss between 2020 and 2024 accounted for nearly a fifth of Brazil’s leather exports to the EU across the same period, even as industry groups lobby Brussels for the commodity’s outright exclusion from the EUDR’s scope. Amongst companies improving leather traceability the report cited Spanish clothing group Inditex, whose brands include Zara, alongside German sports brand Puma and French luxury conglomerate Kering, with German car manufacturers BMW Group and Volkswagen Group also named as making progress on supply chain visibility.
Experts cautioned that the regulation’s serial delays were themselves an obstacle to the progress the Forest 500 data document, with those who had invested in compliance systems warning that each postponement raises costs rather than easing them. “The EU’s goals and targets are best served by decisive implementation without further delays, simplifications or scope reductions,” said Niki Mardas, Executive Director at Global Canopy, whose organisation’s 2026 assessment found that only 19 of the 500 companies it monitors currently meet the standard of genuine leadership on deforestation, compared with the 24 that have never published a single public commitment since Forest 500 began its evaluations in 2014.
