The Supply Chain Leverage That Could Stop Deforestation

The EU Deforestation Regulation has been delayed — but the clock is still ticking. Are supply chains really ready?

Deforestation has long been treated as a distant, upstream issue. With the EU Deforestation Regulation postponed until 31 December 2026, some companies may be tempted to pause. That would be a mistake. The expectations are clear, the data requirements are real, and the time to build traceability is now.

In this episode, I’m joined by Priscillia Moulin, Director of Strategy at MosaiX, an organisation working directly with companies, traders, and producers to identify, monitor, and stop deforestation in global commodity supply chains. Priscillia has spent more than a decade working on the ground across Southeast Asia, helping companies translate sustainability commitments into operational reality.

We talk through what deforestation-free supply chains actually look like in practice. You’ll hear how satellite data and algorithms can detect land-use change, but why human expertise remains essential to avoid costly mistakes. We break down what the EU Deforestation Regulation will ultimately require, why traceability to plot level is unavoidable, and how many companies still lack visibility beyond tier one suppliers.

You might be surprised to learn how quickly forest clearing can sometimes stop when buyers engage suppliers properly - and why simply dropping non-compliant suppliers often shifts risk rather than reducing it. We also explore real success stories, showing how data, supplier engagement, and local action combine to build resilience while protecting forests and livelihoods.

🎙️ Listen now to hear how Priscillia Moulin and MosaiX are helping companies prepare for EUDR and build genuinely resilient, sustainable supply chains.

 If disruption hit tomorrow, would you know where your supply chain was most exposed? In 15 minutes my free scorecard helps you assess 27 resilience statements, calculate your score, and turn the result into three priorities and a 30 day action plan. You can download the scorecard free at tomraftery.com/scorecard.

Transcript

Copy

Priscillia Moulin: 0:03

We have estimated about 2 million hectare of avoided deforestation. Without this intervention, potentially 2 million hectare of forest would've been cleared. That's about, yeah, the size of, of Slovenia or I think 12 time London.

Tom Raftery: 0:18

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 104 of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Raftery. For years, deforestation lived somewhere upstream, out of sight, easy to push onto suppliers and certifications. Forest risk has moved into procurement, legal, compliance, and straight onto the balance sheet. Traceability is no longer optional. Today's conversation is about what deforestation free supply chains actually look like in practice, not on paper, not in sustainability reports, but on the ground where decisions by buyers can either stop forest loss or quietly enable it. To unpack this, I'm joined by Priscillia Moulin, director of Strategy at MosaiX. Priscillia spent over a decade helping companies trace commodities back to the plot level, detect deforestation using satellite data and field investigations, and engage suppliers in ways that actually change outcomes. In this episode, we talk about how deforestation can sometimes stop with a single phone call. Why technology alone isn't enough. What the EU deforestation regulation really requires and why cutting suppliers loose often makes problems worse, not better. And as always, if you want full access to the entire backlog of over 480 episodes, plus a direct line to me for feedback, ideas, and guest suggestions, you'll find the Resilient Supply Chain Plus subscribe link in the show notes. Now Priscillia, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Priscillia Moulin: 2:01

Thank you very much for having me here, Tom, and, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. So my name is Priscillia. I'm the Director of Strategy for MosaiX, a company Incorporated in the Netherlands, but I'm also senior advisor to InovasiDigital and Earthqualizer Foundation, which are the different branches and together we work as a sustainable advising organisation for the corporate sector. I'm French and Canadian. I was born and raised in France. And I've always had a passion for environmental protection. I, I grew up in the rural part of France or really in the mountain areas, and so really lived very close to nature. And when I grew up, I was also fascinated by foreign cultures and languages. Throughout my studies, I started to learn more about tropical forests and actually protecting forests worldwide. And, and, and, and quickly after my, my first internship, I moved to Malaysia and spent quite some time in Indonesia, helping companies save the rainforest.

Tom Raftery: 3:04

Fantastic. Fantastic. And MosaiX that you mentioned there and helping corporate clients, what kind of corporate clients are you helping with what?

Priscillia Moulin: 3:15

Okay. All right. So just a bit of a background for those who might not be familiar with, the work that we're doing. Most of you will be familiar with, palm oil which is famous for, the wrong reasons. So the palm oil product is used in a wide range of products. Palm oil is in your shampoo, cosmetics, and your biscuits in, in animal feeds, in even used for, for biofuels, for cars. And so in the years 2000. In late two thousands, you had a really massive NGO campaign accusing famous European brands of, of being responsible for destroying rainforest and killing orangutan habitats. And I dunno if some of you remember back in the days you had a very famous advertisement for a chocolate bar and it was, if, basically if you have this chocolate bar, you would have like two fingers, like you would see the, the, the person biting and the biting in orangutan fingers. And at that time was kind of a shock and a lot of brands in Europe were wondering how can we be linked to that? We're just selling deodorants here in France, for example. And shortly they had to understand their supply chain impact and to work on a traceability and how can they indeed be linked to habitat, endangered species habitat destructions. So, in the early 2010s and you had a movement of companies adopting what we call now as no deforestation commitments, meaning they would source all of their products that would be free of deforestation, peatland conversion, and also human right exploitation. And one of the very first breakthrough comprehensive policy was adopted in December, 2013 by a, major trader and refiner of, palm oil, that has it headquarters in in Singapore, but is supplying the European and and other markets. And so, this is when I, started my career. So I had this internship in Malaysia in, in 2014. and then I found, found my first job and was positioned to help that company in specific on, okay, you have a sustainability policy on paper. It's nice, it, it looks great and it has beautiful words, but how do you actually implement that because supply chains are so complex that to translate a, policy into an an operational level implementation, that's, it's a bit more complicated. So this is where I started, and this is what our organisations have been focusing on since all these years. We've been helping companies with analysing the risk in their supply chain and also once you analyse the risk, what, what we help the companies with is not only, okay, let's say I'm a, I'm a buyer. I'm, I'm buying palm oil, soy, other commodities because I'm talking focusing about palm oil here, which has been the main focus of our work as our headquarters are in, in Indonesia, obviously that was a big part of our, of the challenge there. But this approach can, can apply to cocoa, coffee, and, and soy. And so once we identify a risk, once a company identify a risk in their supply chain next is okay, what to do with that. You have suppliers, some of them have you have long contracts with them, for example. And ideally you don't want them out of your supply chain because you have commercial aspects to it. You might need their products. And so you engage with, with suppliers. And so this is what we do and we support with, identify the risk, engage with the suppliers, facilitate this connection and advice on long-term solutions. So, for example, the deforestation must stop. That's the commitment, that's the policy. But then what's next? How do you actually gonna protect the forest? Because of course you have illegal aspects and different countries have different rules around that. And also what, what we should not forget is oftentimes local communities and small holders were welcoming this development because they were promised jobs and, and, like economic development. And so you also need to say, okay, like, we are not gonna clear forest anymore, but then what's, what are we gonna offer? How are we going to still improve the livelihood? And what's pretty amazing with the work that, that we do is that, about 80% of our team is based and originally from Southeast Asia. So for them, having this kind of a real life impact matters. So you hear a lots, oh, we have, like, I think in the western world, you hear a lot, oh, you have to protect forest and you have to, but it seems kind of, like just like a nice words and, I love what we do because then our team say, yeah, well actually that really matters for us there on the ground and we want to see improved life conditions including like yeah, avoiding environmental destruction. yeah.

Tom Raftery: 8:02

And how are you helping companies with those commitments?

Priscillia Moulin: 8:06

So concretely the way we do that is, so I'm gonna talk, if, let's say you are a company and you say, I would like to make sure that my supply chain is not destroying forests there's no human right exploitation in there. Step number one is usually to l ook into traceability. So the way we help companies is, okay, where are you actually buying from? Who are your suppliers and where are they operating? You will look at that about, okay, who are they? Pure corporate intelligence. Okay, where are they incorporated, in which commodities do they operate? What's the structure? Do they have a manufacturing business, would have plantation business? So all of that, we do kind of a profiling, and then we look at actual physical supply chain. So then we would say, oh, a, a specific company, a downstream company let's say a Dutch company would be buying from several mills. Let's say the facility that process the fresh, fruit bunches. I don't want to get too technical in there, but yet that's, we call it a mill. Those that, that process the, oil palm fruits into palm oil. And so they would look at there. And then we have our team. We have an incredible team of experts that have all the data necessary to basically analyse the risk. So they look at the plantation location. So like having accurate baselines such as where are the plantation, what are the boundaries? Who are they operated by? And how is that actually linked to the, to the specific, to that specific downstream company in the Netherlands, if we follow this example. And so the, they look, those are the plantation, those are the boundaries. And then we use new technologies to detect land use change. This is where it gets interesting. I think the discussions around new technologies and will that ever replace human? I know that there's, there's been a lot of, changing discussions around that. It is very useful and you can have algorithm to detect a land use change. So you would be looking at yeah, has a patch of forest being removed or of things like this. But this will never replace the human eyes. The human eyes. So the way we do it is we use this algorithm detection, this, this platform, so this tech platform with like automated alerts, but we always add a human expert eye. Meaning that our team always go through the findings and actually look at, at, oh, is it actually they, they use different satellite imagery, different resolutions. And so is that actually a forest loss or could it be sometimes replanting, right?'cause if you remove the, the old pine trees, it can also be detected as a, as a loss of, of forest. But actually, if you look from a, a human eye, it, it wouldn't be. So they look at that, and I think the accuracy and, it matters a lot, especially when you talk about a real life engagement and potentially reconsidering your relation with the supplier, right? So tech helps, but it cannot replace human eyes. So we did take that. We, we have also the tech platform, our team, that, that, that validates the finding. In some cases, even using satellite, imagery, the finding cannot be verified. So in this case, we send teams on the ground. So we have a presence on the ground. We have several offices in islands of Sumatra and island of, of Borneo, on the Indonesian side. So our team can go verify themselves through field investigation, or we also have a fleet of drones, so we also can fly drones over some, some areas that could be controversial. And so once you have this findings and it's confirmed, that's the company that was clearing forest or burning areas or like clearing a peatland. Then you report back to that company in, in, in the Netherlands and say, well, it's confirmed. It's that suppliers, they've cleared this amount of, forest. You should engage them. And, then next step is to advise, them what to do. So in general, it includes they should adopt an immediate stop work order, meaning no more development until we assess the situation further. They should commit to themselves to a no deforestation policies. And they should be involved in the long-term sustainability programs, including local government, local communities, and any local stakeholders. At the moment we're working with about 25 companies at different level of the supply chain. Some are, consumer goods companies. Some are more midstream manufacturers. Others are like refiners and traders, so those that get to buy the oil directly. But we also work with plantation companies on the ground. So, as you can imagine, the level of support is different. Like the need is different depending on, on where you are. But this approach has been very successful. And so we've been doing that for about, yeah, 10 years now. And why it is successful because you're talking about the buyer to supplier relations or business to business. And so when we detect a deforestation case, sometime it stops within a week just by a phone call. You cannot, I'm sorry. You're violating the terms of my contract that cannot continues. It stops. We've looked at all the cases where our partners and ourselves have intervened using this exactly the same methodology of risk assessment engagement, and we have estimated about 2 million hectare of avoided deforestation. Without this intervention, potentially 2 million hectare of forest would've been cleared. That's about, yeah, the size of, of Slovenia or I think 12 time London. So that's, it's quite significant and yeah, now next is what, what we are really trying to do. We would, ideally you would have all companies involved in this type of work? Oftentimes downstream companies like consumer goods companies like No, I'm, too far down the, the supply chain and I have no impact. Well, actually no, there is, there is that it can really contribute and ideally you would have a shared responsibility effort throughout the supply chain with the suppliers. Sometimes it's not direct suppliers, but you buy through layers of suppliers until you actually reach to a plantation on the ground. But ideally, you would have this, this support to engage and to do this kind of work. So now, next is, okay, you have this 2 million hectare of avoided deforestation. There's actually more, but this is what we have quantified based on, on our work. And then it's like, okay, what's next? Then this forest needs to be legally protected. So that's of course, that's another, another challenge because you have also to consider the political interests, which is and in any country, not the same, right? It some sometime can be conflicting.

Tom Raftery: 14:51

Sure. And what's driving the urgency around deforestation free supply chains right now?

Priscillia Moulin: 14:58

I think a lot of forests have long been carbon sinks. I mean, not I've long, but they, they are, they are the carbon sinks and so, more and more when you look at the discussions around reducing greenhouse gas emission or like storing more carbon stocks oftentimes, forest protection is one of the, the solution if I can say so. So if you look at the forest itself and for like the pure carbon value then that, that, that's really necessary when looking at, at climate change, a broader climate change discussions. So that would be the macro level. If you look at the micro level, of course, forests have a very vital functions of course, providing clean air to breathe also like a clean water and preventing erosion. So in a lot of the areas that are actually being deforested, you have issues with, floodings. So for example, also you have like, if you clear mangrove areas, I know that there's some, some areas in west of Borneo that you have now flooding and the sea getting in eroding villages because of the mangrove that have been cleared. And so of course there's no natural barrier anymore. And of course, I would say for the, the sake of, of course, the biodiversity, I guess it's we want the next generation to be able to, travel to these places and to see orangutan and to potentially see tigers. And, and I think this is, why a lot of countries now I are having regulations around no deforestation commitment. So if we look at the European Union for example, they adopted the EU Deforestation Regulation, whereby they should be no imports of, of deforestation for seven commodities, which is yap, palm oil, cocoa, soy, timber, rubber, I might have forgotten one, but like the main commodities that are driving deforestation worldwide. And so any product that will be placed on the EU market will have to follow strict due diligence, declaration and processes. So any companies that will be importing a, a set of defined products, I mean those, those commodities and, defined derivatives will have to prove they do not come from deforestation. That is actually a great thing'cause the deforestation commitment I was mentioning earlier that were adopted in the year 2010. Those were voluntary commitments, so you had a good number of companies. In fact, a lot of companies in with headquarter in Southeast Asia have adopted it and, they're really doing great and, and the progress is really, is really amazing. But still, you had a lot of company because it's voluntary and they could get away with it, then they would, why, what should we bother implementing it? So you had a lot of European company had the commitments, but we're not necessarily implementing it actively and rather relying on suppliers to do the job. So, the great thing with the EUDR, like in short, the EU Deforestation Regulation. Is that it creates a level playing field whereby all companies now within the EU are at the, have to follow the same, same level of standards. So it's, it's really created a good baseline for everybody pushing them, working on traceability. So that's, I think that's, there was a bit of a panic of like, a lot of companies actually not even knowing where they were buying from other than, oh, I'm buying soy from Brazil, for example. Or, yeah, some, some of the best cases at state level. But it's like, no, this EUDR actually requires companies to trace back to the, to the facility where they bought from. And beyond, which mean the land plots, the land of production of that specific commodities. And not only they have to trace back to the, to the the plot of production, but they have to submit. the plot of production when they will import the product into the EU. So together with the due diligence, it will have, okay, those are the maps, those are the plots we're buying this specific commodity from. And this is the proof that they're produced legally. Because of course, the legal aspect is important. So legally meaning in the line with local regulations. So from wherever country was imported from and that is free of deforestation. So they would have to show a set of documents. Let's say this plot has this land title, and that's, and, and, and then they would have to attach, satellite imagery, for example, to, to show that this was not deforested. And it actually goes beyond proving that the commodity was produced legally and, and free of deforestation. If your product came from an area a district or a state that is high risk. So. Let's say your plot of production is, is low risk. Okay? Like, there's no deforestation. It's all legal, but perhaps it is located in an area that is extremely high risk because of a many illegals, small holders, or farmers operating there. Or perhaps there's still a high forest cover and like a deforestation has been like really high in the past couple of years, then you would have to show you have risk mitigation processes in place to avoid buying from a high risk area in the future. That's actually pretty good. This is back to your question on why the urgency of protecting forests. So like the governments are realising that, and you have similar commitments, or I would say may the EU one is really the highest standard one at, at the moment. But I know that in the US there were discussions about the US Forest Act that would be more though about importing product coming from illegal deforestation. So does not necessarily address all the issues. it's important to know here that most of the deforestation happening in the world, it is actually legal as per local regulation. So, certain countries they allow so that, for example, in Indonesia, if you look at, at palm oil plantation once you get the business permits and you have the right to operate. If it's forest, not forest, you have the right to operate. You lease the land for a certain number of years and you can just clear it all. And, and in fact, we see what's pretty interesting if you look at how companies are committed to sustainability versus how some countries want like pure development, like a short term gain. Some companies, they say no, sorry, like we, okay, we cleared a certain amount of land and it's enough for us like enough production for, for operating viably but then they say, okay, we have a certain amount of forest. We do not want to clear anymore. We want to set it aside because yeah, there's a service saying like there's orangutan or anything, but then the government comes at them and say, no, no, no. I lease the land so that you can clear it. So please, you have to clear it. And so we've had these cases, some cases where actually the land was taken back from the government and leased to another company that would be willing to, to clear it. So that's, yeah.

Tom Raftery: 22:48

Ouch. And EUDR the EU Deforestry Regulation What's the hardest part of that for companies trying to comply and for companies that are non-compliant, what are the penalties?

Priscillia Moulin: 23:06

I would say maybe because we've been doing the, work for, for quite a while, if it's about finding the right partners. So for example, finding an organisation like ours who can actually help. I would say they could be compliant and have all in place, like very quickly.'cause we've, so we've been doing this work for like, about 10 years. And we've been like really focusing on, on the solution for the, for the EUDR since, early days, I think since early 2023 when it was not even officially enacted yet. A lot of companies have been proactively looking at the potential risk against the EU DR So that's actually pretty good. So And of course, we're not the only one out there. I think we, we are doing things pretty good, but I'm sure that there are plenty of others that can help. So it's about, yeah, finding the right partner. Of course, if companies will do it by themselves, that, that can be really overwhelming because yeah, it seems. Such a huge tasks to undertake. So, yeah, that's, that's it. And sorry, I, I would would like to add that this apply for certain commodities palm one and soy. Others, yeah, they might not be ready. I would say they're commodities, like timber rubber, that might have more difficult times. But those that we've been dealing with, they've been doing that for, for a very long time. So it's, I don't see a major concern. I think some companies are still betting on, on the UDR being canceled or delayed again. So I feel this is my, I feel like those that by now that I've not worked on any on any of these work is because they are still hoping there might be a change. So let's say it's goes as planned. A product placed on the market must be free of, of deforestation and, and legal and, and so forth. And it turns out that a product that is imported is not legal. Then there will be fines. I, I forgot exactly the, the, the fines the percentage. I think it can go up to 9% of the total revenue within the European Union. That depends on the, that's also something, to be honest, the EU has still not clarified certain things, and I guess we were talking about how a policy is good looking and nice on paper, but the implementation can be more challenging. I think this is what we're seeing with this EUDR. So there are a lot of unanswered questions on how some technical thing will actually be. Like, yeah, we would need more guidance from the EU, which we haven't got. And, but it's fine. I think companies of, of and, and ourselves, we've taken that proactively and tried to, to define certain things by ourselves. So why I'm mentioning this, because the, the penalty that would apply is depending on if you import it from a, a, negligible risk and high risk and, and on medium risk and was kind of interesting. It, this all has been very politic. So at the moment, everybody, like the, anyone at the beginning had had been put a standard risk, and now one of the latest revision they had put, I think it was Belarus, and, and another country that we put in as a high risk, and I think even Russia actually, but all the others, they were like standards. Like this has actually nothing to do with the actual forest, the deforestation risk. Anyway, my point is that now we're still waiting this to be defined and there's a lot of political and lobbying gains where countries like Malaysia, the Malaysia, they're always like in Brussels and trying to influence the outcome of not being high risk and not being low risk. Oh yeah. It's been, it's been pretty funny to watch.

Tom Raftery: 26:42

Sure. Sure, sure, sure. And can you share any success stories from the customers that you work with?

Priscillia Moulin: 26:48

Success story. Well, I think we have many success stories, but let's say I'm wondering which one is specific that I could highlight. Okay. I'll talk about one of our main partners Unilever. I can mention the name this, nothing confidential about it is all in their sustainability reports and, and about the work that we do. So we've been working with Unilever since the end of 2018. And Unilever was one of the companies that was targeted in this big campaign of the late two thousands and, and early 2010s. And they had tried for many years to, work on the on implementing their sustainability commitment. But it was very hard because the supply chain is really, really complex. They buy from many, many, many suppliers, many countries, and because of the nature of the business, of the type of products that they need and a lot of them are specialty fats and the derivatives that that they need sometime in small amount from a specific trader that might be in a, in like, so, so it's, it's hard. In 2018, 2019, the first step was really to understand, so kind of make sense of this whole traceability work. So trying to, to understand their supply chain structure and the supply chain risk. So the, the very first stage of the partnership was about setting up the scenes, you're basically okay, where you buy from, what's the potential risk. And like doing this risk analysis and, and, monitoring of the supply chain. So this is also also something we do for all of our partners. We have a, a biweekly monitoring of, of the supply chain, of ongoing deforestation and, and other things, This is how the partnership started and it evolved in being really a close partnership. So the, the scope of the work has been expanded. So from, it followed the logic of, okay, traceability, risk analysis and looking at long-term solutions. So since 2018 until now, this is the flows that this partnership has followed. And. Unilever has put a lot of effort in. So just. Just a bit, a step back. Many, many suppliers were suspended out of a sustainable supply chain in, in 2018, 2019, 2020, because there was a big push from NGOs. Okay? They're non-compliant. They must be a, they're non-compliant. They must be outs. And for us, we say, okay, that could be indeed a, a step if, if the supplier's not willing to cooperate if after engaging several times, they don't, don't want to cooperate. So yeah, you, you need to, to, to respect your policy as well. But what we've always encouraged is suspend, then engage. Because if you just suspend and then look away, it's like a hit and run, right? Eventually, those, those suppliers, you, you have to you, you have to stay human aspects behind this, like, right? You have people that are working there that might lose their job if they if they have to stop producing. So. Unilever got that right. And so a lot of the companies that they had suspended because of their external pressure and so forth, now they're looking at, okay, which ones can we actually reengage? One indeed to look to really work on inclusion of, the company themselves, but also of the small holders. What we should see is that there's also a lot of small holders and small farmers that are selling to this company. So how can we reintegrate them? And of course buyers, they always want more supply instead less, right? You want to have the choice. You don't want to limit yourself. They've undertaken this amazing work of what we call a reentry, and recovery. So the reentry is okay, that's, the company can be back in the supply chain if they have Yeah, a sustainability policy. And if they commit to a certain there's a list to follow and they must commit to this. One of the thing is what we call a recovery. So recovery is okay, that company, they might have been driving deforestation in the past, but there's actually a way for them to redeem themselves and this would be for them to protect forest and to restore forests. So there's this work that is being done now, and it's becoming mainstream in, in in, in the palm oil industry, which is, okay how can we collectively, as buyers and suppliers protect certain areas of forest or restore certain areas of forest that have been cleared. And this should be done locally, meaning that you gonna protect the forest or restore forest where you had cleared, not just, you know, sometimes you have this carbon offsets where you polluted in, in, in Guatemala, but you can just pay for forest in, in Indonesia. So, no, this is not the concept. The concept is really a local benefit for the environment and local community. So you've, you give back where you took from, basically. And so you never, they've supported that. And a lot of suppliers are very enthusiastic about that because for them it's also a pride of, okay, we're doing things great for our communities, for workers, for stakeholders on the ground. We are making a better livelihood. So we've seen even motivation of these suppliers. Because I think it's, we are getting away from an approach of, oh, you bad, you must be out, you deforest to more like. Yeah, no, like actually you, you can do, great and you can really do great achievement for your, your environment. And so the kind of this positive mindset also because, a lot are realising that if you do good, and if you adopt sustainable practices, your business will benefit. Like the commercial aspects is, is very important in this being sustainable decisions. So, if you develop the land properly, you can avoid yeah, floodings, and you can avoid erosion and you can avoid fires and if you treat your workers' rights. And like, do not steal the land of local communities, then you would've avoid strikes and having some people blocking your roads like, and your trucks getting out of your plantation. So I think a lot of realising now that yeah, it's actually more beneficial for the business in the longer term. And so instead of having a quick benefit and like quick gain, so, I'm, I'm going a bit away from the main question, but it's back to why Unilever and other companies are doing that. And another one is there's a lot of efforts that Unilever has put into smallholders inclusion. So really mapping the small farmers, like trying to understand where they are, where do they operate, and if there's any issue with them operating informally. Or illegally, then how can we actually support them to go through the legal route? Because, and this is gonna be very crucial for the EUDR as well. A lot of them say, well, but the small holders, small farmers, they will never comply. But no, actually it's, it's, they can comply, if you support them. Sometimes it's just a ma matter of helping them going through the the bureaucratic steps of registering the land and getting a letter to prove that the land use is legal, right?'cause sometime it's a land that had been passed on from generation to generation. And so, so yeah, there's also a lot of effort that is now being put in smallholder inclusion. So Unilever is really a success story and they're really, doing great. They have by now a really well established and brilliant sustainability team. They got the support from like the highers up, like higher management, which is pretty good. And this is one of, out of, of many with, of we work with several big names like Procter and Gamble, Barry Callebaut, Mars. And, and so those, they all have similar stories.

Tom Raftery: 34:28

Yeah, of course, of course. For people who are listening to this, supply chain leaders today who are listening to this, who may be overwhelmed by EUDR, you know, what message would you give them?

Priscillia Moulin: 34:42

I think if you take the time to work with the right experts, so that could be internally some people are really having dedicated team or with yeah, external partners or providers. if you are willing to put the resource into that. And when I talk about resource, it doesn't mean putting like hundreds of thousands of millions. Like usually the solution is it's not that expensive, like whether you hire someone internally or someone externally. But I think it starts with the willingness and the support from the top management to actually look into that. So. It's really about step number one, which is, crucial. And then everything will kind of come more easily is the traceability. Who are your suppliers, your direct suppliers, who are their suppliers? And so usually would engage them and try to understand where their supply chain impact is. So it's about creating relation really with your suppliers and understand how they operate, where they operate, and EUDR can seem intimidating, to be honest. I don't think it is really, really hard. Maybe because I work on this every day, so it doesn't seem hard, but yet my points are plenty of people out there that, that, that can definitely help with that. But it's about doing it now and it's about being proactive and it's like, even if it's delayed, better be proactive because so some of our partners of our corporate partners, what they've done is that they worked proactively on implementing EUDR. And what we see is that even if it's delayed or even if its canceled it actually created systems for them and it created, like, they collected a lot of data and, and kind of established procedures that they will keep on following that is actually useful. And there was a study and because in terms of resources, a lot are saying, oh, we're gonna have to spend so much into that. They were saying that actually the cost of EUDR is, I think it's. 0.02%, something of the revenue of a company. So it's, it's really insignificant. And yeah, you better have that than having, I dunno, six 9% of your revenue be as a fine. So.

Tom Raftery: 36:52

Fair. Yeah. Good point. Good point. A left field question for you, Pris, if you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for deforestation free supply chains, who would it be and why?

Priscillia Moulin: 37:11

Oh, that's a good, that's a good question that I had never thought about. I don't, I don't know if I have one name. Really, like no one specific, because I think there are several organisation and, and, and, and, and leaders that have been influencing different things and, and, and yeah, no, I don't know honestly to this point.

Tom Raftery: 37:35

No worries. No worries, no

Priscillia Moulin: 37:37

I mean, but 1, 1, 2 that have inspired me tremendously are, or two. Well, one, his name is Eric Walker. He's our most senior team member. He will retire soon, but he's been dedicated, he has dedicated his entire life since he was in his twenties to, to saving forest. he started his career in, in Philippines and in Indonesia, Malaysia, looking at illegal timber. And he, he did a PhD at in geography and that helped him of course look into that chop impact of illegal timber. And he's been working on, advocating for protecting forests since. the nineties. He's one of the very first one who, who looked into the actual impact of oil palm development in Indonesia. So yeah, he's dedicated his life to it and he is been the lead of a lot of the breakthrough of, of this and, and not deforestation policy. He was behind advocating, talking to companies on, on having that, adopted. And so, yeah, that's that. Him and his Indonesian counterparts. So our who is currently our, our CEO He himself has had his land affected directly by oil palm development. And so he's been personally involved in, into investigating the cases of, of, of palm oil development and, and writing hundred like reports of a hundred of pages. Again, like, again, certain companies back in the days where, yeah, back in the days they were more into like really advocating campaigning side. And in, in this year, 2010s, so. So yeah, they've been the one leading the, the, the way of, of the work that we're doing now and teaching us everything.

Tom Raftery: 39:22

Okay, great. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now Pris, is there any question that I did not ask that you wish I did, or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you feel is important?

Priscillia Moulin: 39:35

Yeah, I think I would really like to highlight is that oftentimes in the West, I've seen a lot of discussions about forest protection being all about reducing GHG emission and the carbon. And really, it, is indeed an aspect, but forest has a value for, for local communities. It has a value for where it belongs. And oftentimes we do not see the reality of things, right? It might seem something, abstract when you're just like, yeah. On, on, on a couch somewhere in Europe. And I've seen firsthand, I've spent time in, in, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, in Sarawak and I've seen firsthand that the, the forest destruction and how there was this community, they woke up one morning, they went to church, they were the mass, and they come and they came back in the afternoon to the land to their agro forest. And it had been cleared by a company like, can you believe you yourself? You come back home, you had like planted this beautiful few fruit tree that you were living from because of course that was agro forest or a source of income and they woke up and say, oh, it was, I, I've been there to the site. And it was 30 hectares, which might seem 30 hectare at the scale of, of deforestation is nothing. I mean, we've seen cases, we know of one company that's cleared 21,000 hectare in past five to seven years. So I've seen it and it looked apocalyptic. It really looks and I was, oh, that's just 30 hectares, so can you believe areas of thousands and thousands of hectares. So that's my point is that, and I would like also, if there are people watching here that are buying from any forest areas, and I think that there might be an impact on, on, really take the time to, to understand the impact and, and to try to create a change because yeah, in the end it matters and

Tom Raftery: 41:29

Cool. Okay. Pris, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me to direct them?

Priscillia Moulin: 41:39

They can reach out directly to my LinkedIn accounts Priscilia Moulin and they, can also check out our, our website, MosaiX dot Earth. And they would find more information about what, what we're doing.

Tom Raftery: 41:51

Okay. I'll put links to those in the show notes so everyone has access to them. Great.

Priscillia Moulin: 41:56

Okay, great.

Tom Raftery: 41:57

Pris, that's, been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Priscillia Moulin: 42:01

And thanks to you for, for having me here.

Tom Raftery: 42:04

Okay. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Every week, thousands of senior supply chain and sustainability leaders tune in to learn what's next in resilience, innovation, and transformation. If your organisation wants to reach this influential global audience, the people shaping the future of supply chains, consider partnering with the show. Sponsorship isn't just brand visibility, it's thought leadership, credibility, and direct engagement with the decision makers driving change. To explore how we can spotlight your story or your solutions, connect with me on LinkedIn or drop me an email at Tom at tom Raftery dot com. Let's collaborate to build smarter, more resilient, more sustainable supply chains together. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll catch you all in the next episode.