With a tablet in hand, a man briskly walked through the cocoa plantations of Adzopé, a town in southeastern Ivory Coast. Hired by the Coopérative agricole de Yakassé-Attobrou (Cayat), the "sustainability coach" entered the parcel's GPS coordinates into his app. "He's checking to make sure I haven't encroached on the forest. If I have, soon I won't be able to export anymore and I'll have to shut down," said Kobenan Koffi Kouman, age 64, a little further along.

Like the approximately 1.2 million cocoa producers in Ivory Coast, this grower was preparing for the European regulation banning the importation of products linked to deforestation (RDUE). Adopted in June 2023, the regulation is set to come into effect on December 30, 2025, for micro and small businesses, and June 30, 2026, for others. Under this legislation, growers of products such as cocoa, coffee, rubber and palm oil who want to keep exporting to the European Union (EU) must prove their goods do not come from land deforested after 2020. This new law is part of the European Green Deal, launched in late 2019 with the goal of making the EU economy carbon neutral carbon-neutral carbon neutral by 2050.

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