2023 database of disclosure, due diligence, and trade-based supply chain legislation of potential relevance for the coffee sector

Between 2015 and 2022, numerous consuming countries in North America, Europe, and Oceania have proposed or passed legislation aimed to improve the environmental and social sustainability of businesses’ supply chains. These fall into three categories: disclosure-based legislation, mandating that companies report on sustainability-related risks and their approach to reducing it; due diligence legislation, which mandates companies to implement procedures to assess, mitigate, and remediate sustainability-related risks in their supply chains; and trade-based legislation, which prohibits the import of specific types of goods linked to adverse outcomes. We can further distinguish between single-issue legislation on the issues of labor problems (modern slavery/forced labor/child labor) and deforestation in the supply chain, and legislations with broader human rights and environmental scope. This database and the related report aim to provide an overview of the status, scope, and requirements of various laws that are tabled or already in force, with a particular focus on how they are likely to affect the coffee sector and actors within it. 

2023 update:The 2023 version of the database updates the status of the respective regulations and expands the scope of search also to emerging consuming countries (e.g. in Asia) and producing countries (e.g. in Latin America). Please see country scope below.  In the 2023 version of the database, we further added the category of "National Strategies, Action Plans, and Guidelines" to refer to soft law approaches that are more common in certain regions (such as Asia) to date. For completeness, we furthermore added select regulations (e.g. the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act) that have likely low relevance to the coffee sector but indicate a broader trend of the use of due diligence and trade instruments. The risk level of each legislation for coffee actors is described in column AQ. Green highlighted names of legislations highlight new additions to the database, while green highlighted cells indicate changes in criteria of legislations that were already part of the 2022 database. 

This database was last updated on 14.09.2023, and contains information that was correct to the best of the authors' knowledge up to that date.