Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell are not associated with deforestation. Down the line, this could also help companies become compliant with the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The voluntary Beef on Track (BoT) label, launched by the Institute of Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Imaflora) in October and due to come into effect in 2026, is the first certification of its kind to guarantee deforestation-free beef. It will do so by building on existing monitoring, reporting and verification protocols adopted by the meat industry, rather than by designing new systems. “We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re giving visibility to processes that already exist,” said Marina Guyot, Imaflora’s executive manager for climate, land use and public policy. Imaflora was involved in creating two initiatives that encourage best practices in the beef industry through monitoring, reporting and verification in recent years: the Beef on Track program (Boi na Linha in Portuguese) for beef produced in the Amazon, set up in 2019, and the Cerrado Protocol, launched in 2024. Companies that are already 95% compliant with these protocols are automatically eligible for BoT’s lowest certification level. Imaflora plans to develop similar frameworks for other Brazilian biomes in the future. The BoT certification will also rely on criteria from the Working Group of Indirect Suppliers (GTFI in Portuguese), a cross-sector body working to uproot deforestation from…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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