New partnership to help NR industry comply with EUDR regulation

Oslo – Rubber sustainability platform RubberWay has linked up with agricultural supply-chain traceability specialist Farmforce, to help natural rubber (NR) supplier adapt to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

The project will tap RubberWay’s expertise in NR and Farmforce’s traceability technology to create “a comprehensive solution” for rubber producers, processors, and buyers to achieve EUDR compliance.

Users will be granted access to “a comprehensive suite of services” as part of the solution, the partners said in a joint statement issued in March.

The services, they stated, are “tailored for farmer registration, polygon mapping, legality verification, and deforestation monitoring.”

Rubberway and Farmforce have previously completed a joint pilot-phase involving five factories in Indonesia and Thailand.

The large-scale rollout will involve a minimum of 70 processing factories across at least eight countries in 2024, they explained.

The platform, according to the statement, currently has registrations from over 10,000 farms.

The new partnership aims to create “a more transparent, responsible, and resilient rubber industry," said Norbert Binot, global sales director at Farmforce.

The project will provide “an advanced solution” to RubberWay clients to meet their EUDR requirements, added Côme de la Porte, head of operations at RubberWay.

Based in Singapore, RubberWay was established by Continental, Michelin and Smag in 2019, to develop a mobile app to map NR sustainability practices.

The company, the statement said, is now also supporting other major tire manufacturers including Goodyear and Sumitomo.

These tire makers, the statement continued, “are geared to adopt RubberWay's platform as their preferred tool for addressing EUDR Compliance.”