ANRPC meeting offers ‘future vision’ for natural rubber sector

Kochi, India – The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has reported on the main points raised at the Sustainable Natural Rubber Forum 2026, held 19 Aug in Kochi.

Hosted by India’s Rubber Board, the ANRPC event brought together around 120 stakeholders from member countries, industry leaders, smallholder organisations, and international partners.

Presenters and delegates from countries including Cambodia, India, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as Europe met to “chart a transformative path for the global natural rubber sector,” said the association.

ANRPC secretary-general Dr. Suttipong Angthong and M. Vasanthagesan, executive director, Rubber Board, government of India, opened the forum, themed ‘Aligning Priorities for Resilient Supply Chain’.

Discussion topics included challenges of climate change, supply-chain traceability, regulatory pressures including the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and rising market demand for verified sustainable materials.

And, said the association, the conclusions “underscored a critical consensus: the industry's future hinges on collaborative action, with smallholder inclusion as the cornerstone of any successful sustainability strategy.”

New approaches

Among the speakers to address the forum, Rinika Grover of Apollo Tyres said scope 3 emissions account for over 80% of the tire industry's total carbon footprint. Urging a fundamental "cradle-to-grave" approach to delivering net-zero goals, Grover further noted that upstream emissions are typically around 26 times higher than operational emissions.

For his part, Dr. Satya S. Tripathi of New York-based Global Alliance for Sustainable Planet introduced "regenerative rubber landscapes," noting that plantations on degraded land can achieve carbon emissions as low as 0.5 tons of CO2 per ton of rubber – compared to up to 20 tons on recently deforested land.

Among NR producing countries, Thailand?is positioning the EUDR “not as a trade barrier but as a catalyst for modernising its rubber ecosystem through farmer registration, geolocation mapping, and digital traceability platforms,” the meeting heard.

India?unveiled the?Bharat Sustainable Natural Rubber (BSNR)?system, the country's first ‘digital public i0nfrastructure’ (DPI) grade platform: having already mapped over 56,000 hectares with targets of 150,000 hectares by March 2027.

Elsewhere, Cambodia?is developing a national traceability system, having registered approximately 18,000 producers with 86,000 more in progress across over 400,000 hectares of rubber cultivation, forum delegates also heard.

Empowerment

With smallholders producing 85-90% of global natural rubber, speakers across all sessions “stressed that sustainability frameworks must empower, not burden, farming communities<” continued the ANRPC report.

In this context, the INROAD Project – a public-private partnership between the Indian government and four tire companies – was highlighted as a “transformative” model. With an investment of around $130 million, the project has distributed 83 million rubber plants to over 200,000 tribal smallholders and created 300 new nurseries in northeast India.

‘Shared-investment’ was, meanwhile a theme of case studies presented by Michelin, Harrisons Malayalam, the Malaysian Rubber Council, and the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber. Such initiatives were stated to be delivering “measurable positive outcomes while also driving resilience.”

The forum also showcased innovative solutions, such as the European Forest Institute’s Wemo free, open-source traceability app designed specifically to support EUDR compliance with offline functionality for remote smallholder communities.

Regarding EUDR compliance, Apollo Tyres and Corrie-Maccoll addressed the value-chain process, noting operators face potential penalties of 4% of revenue making robust internal systems essential, according to the forum report.  

Goals for 2030

In the final panel discussion, ANRPC concluded, policymakers and industry leaders envisioned a transformed sector by 2030 featuring a digitally-connected natural rubber supply chain and “significantly improved” livelihoods for smallholders.

Also, the industry leaders hoped to see natural rubber “recognised as a climate-positive material with carbon credit potential, [as well as] industry-wide sustainability standards replacing fragmented compliance approaches.”

Summing up, ANRPC secretary-general Dr. Suttipong Angthong said:?"No single stakeholder can build resilience alone. The path forward requires shared investment, measurable outcomes, and recognition that smallholders must be central to every sustainability framework we develop."