A. Relevance and sustainability context
A.1 Policy relevance
Germany’s bioeconomy is central to sustainable development and global trade, but its dependence on both domestic resources and imports creates wider environmental impacts in regions supplying agricultural commodities. Environmental impacts of imports include direct or indirect links to deforestation and biodiversity loss abroad. To maintain competitiveness and uphold its sustainability commitments, there is a need for Germany to integrate global environmental conditions into bioeconomy monitoring and governance. Monitoring of annual deforestation trends abroad, derived from remote sensing, offers a robust, factual benchmark to relate how Germany’s trade in bio-based resources affects ecosystems worldwide. Therefore, quantifying the extent to which crop production contributes to global deforestation provides a valuable context for understanding the role of the German bioeconomy within broader global trends, though, the exact quantification of its share is limited by the data gaps relating to crop sourcing locations. However, the deforestation hotspot trends provide broader overviews of the linked risks and reveals how consumption patterns influence deforestation rates in global sources beyond national borders. Insights are expected to support policy makers in making evidence-based decisions within the scope of environmental and sustainability regulation.
Following are the list of relevant German and EU ministries, policies, regulations, and frameworks for the indicator:
- German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) Frameworks: The BLE is the official competent authority in Germany charged with implementing and enforcing the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and conducting strict market compliance checks on imported commodities.
- Biomass Electricity & Biofuel Sustainability Ordinances (BioSt-NachV & Biokraft-NachV): German national laws that convert EU requirements into domestic legal frameworks. They mandate rigorous, data-verified compliance certificates tracking greenhouse gas reduction and origin data before bio-based resources can receive economic support.
- EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR - Regulation 2023/1115): This is the most direct legislative match. It prohibits commodities like soy, palm oil, wood, rubber, cattle, cocoa, and coffee from entering the EU market unless they are proven to be deforestation-free and legally produced. Crucially, it mandates geolocation tracing down to the specific plot of land using remote sensing and satellite monitoring.
- Renewable Energy Directive (RED III): Tightens sustainability criteria for biomass used in energy and biofuels. It bans the extraction of biomass from High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, such as primary forests and peatlands, and penalizes indirect land-use change (iLUC).
- Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD): Obliges large companies operating in the EU to identify, prevent, and mitigate negative environmental and human rights impacts across their entire upstream and downstream global value chains.
- EU Bioeconomy Strategy: A structural framework aimed at building a circular, sustainable biobased economy. It focuses on addressing resource competition and expanding the environmental monitoring frameworks.
A.2 Sustainability and / or comparative evaluation options
GRAS plans to continue supporting monitoring efforts in the future by focusing on crop-driven deforestation. This approach will help enhance the understanding, tracking, and mitigation of deforestation caused by agricultural expansion on a global scale. The results will assist in connecting consumption, production, and extractive systems, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of the impacts across supply chains and enabling the identification of key areas of concern, particularly with regard to displaced environmental burdens (at multiple scales), in the context of the German bioeconomy.
B. Data availability
B.1 Stage of development
Both indicators are new, previously not reported in an official capacity, but well established through SYMOBIO research projects: During SYMOBIO 1.0, Meo Carbon Solutions and GRAS provided evidence that efficient and accurate monitoring of the Bioeconomy must be extended to the beginning of the supply chain, the biomass production at the farm, plantation, and forestry level. Following this, in “SYMOBIO 2.0” (2022-2024), GRAS developed a semi-automatic system (SAS) for assessing crop-driven deforestation, focusing on palm-driven deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia from 2008 to 2021, as well as soy and sugarcane-driven deforestation in Brazil for the same period. Additionally, GRAS analysed the impact of soy and sugarcane deforestation on High Conservation Value (HCV) areas in Brazil.
In the current SYMOBIO 2PLUS project, GRAS targets to provide annual updates on crop-driven deforestation up to 2024 and establish a framework for regular monitoring and annual updates over time. GRAS plans to continue enhance the SAS and add its results and derived statistics to a web application to display crop-driven deforestation information. The web application has been planned to go beyond the country-level information, providing in-depth information on crop-related deforestation at different administrative and sub-administrative levels
B.2 Data sources
GRAS intends to use an established remote sensing methodology based on a combination of ESA Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, together with other relevant open-source satellite imagery. These datasets are used to apply deep learning models and generate annual crop maps. To quantify crop-driven deforestation, these maps are combined with tree loss and forest baseline datasets. In addition, deep learning models require reference land-use and crop maps for training and validation.
B.3 Coverage over time and replicability
Annual update of respective countries. No time lag expected.
B.4 Coverage across scales and sectors; compatibility
Palm driven deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. Soy and Sugarcane in Brazil.
C. Considerations for operationalization
C.1 Feasibility: Fit for monitoring
Monitoring approach is robust, with only minor uncertainties related to satellite data availability. The framework development for the institutionalisation of the remote sensing-based deforestation monitoring system is part of the GRAS work package in SYMOBIO2Plus. Risks associated with satellite data failure or potential mission disruption are considered low. The methodology is reliable for assessing the impact of bioeconomy-related deforestation abroad. The quality of results may be affected by the availability of cloud-free satellite imagery.
C.2 Institutions
GRAS will be well positioned to calculate and report the indicator, given its existing technical expertise, in-house remote sensing capacity, and ongoing work under SYMOBIO2PLUS to institutionalise the monitoring framework. By leveraging these resources, GRAS can enhance its capacity for seamless and continuous monitoring of crop-driven deforestation.
C.3 Future prospects
Semi‑automated workflows and planned web dashboards are in progress to support scalable, continuous monitoring. GRAS is optimizing the SAS, improving data processing and pipeline efficiency to enhance monitoring results. To optimize the SAS, it is required to review the current data processing pipelines, identify any bottlenecks or inefficiencies, and streamline workflows using advanced algorithms or cloud technology. For example, GRAS can enhance data input by evaluating the efficiency of dataset retrieval and the generation of required outputs. Then, we can rationalize these processes by using automated data retrieval tools and cloud-based platforms. This approach will improve the efficiency of our monitoring system overall. Additionally, GRAS will develop the conceptual framework for operationalizing the SAS for continuous monitoring. Beyond the scope of SYMOBIO 2PLUS, this will support the establishment of an institutionalized monitoring, which can also be the foundation for scaling up to additional countries and crops.
C.4 Costs, considerations and reproducibility
TBD. Depending on monitoring to be developed for stakeholders.
C.5 Potential for automation
Semi-automated monitoring: The results will be further streamlined with the help of a semi-automatic system, which will make the data available as part of an interactive web application dashboard. Framework and institutionalization approach will be developed to provide continuous and regularly updated data. The results will be facilitated in a web application platform that will also be linked on the bioeconomy monitoring website (www.monitoring-biooekonomie.de) for public outreach and transparency.
C.6 Presentation options and breakdown / sub-indicator needs
Quantified periodic spatial maps of targeted crop expansion and respective deforestation (ha) for each targeted country. Presented in form of a web application dashboard enabling the analysis at administrative or sub administrative levels.
C.7 Potential for scenario integration
To be determined.
C.8 Interlinkages and alignment with other monitoring activities
See policy relevance above.