Issue brief proposes common criteria to strengthen soy and beef traceability
Brazil already has advanced tools for monitoring soy and beef supply chains. The problem is that existing systems do not necessarily check the same information or consistently apply the same criteria. This makes it difficult to compare results and creates uncertainty for producers, companies, governments and international buyers.
This is the starting point for the issue brief Tracing Responsibility: Strengthening Deforestation Monitoring in Brazil’s Soy and Beef Supply Chains, launched by WRI Brasil on 28 July.
BVRio’s Director of Forests and Public Policy, Roberta del Giudice, is listed as the report’s first author. The research was developed by Roberta and the WRI Brasil team during 2024 and 2025, when she was still part of the organisation.
The study compares 21 socio-environmental monitoring and traceability initiatives, ten focused on soy and eleven to beef, operating in the Amazon and Cerrado. Differences include the areas covered, the cut-off dates used to assess deforestation, the extent to which indirect suppliers are included, and the procedures adopted to substantiate claims.
To address these gaps, the study proposes common criteria to strengthen soy and beef traceability. In practical terms, this would work as a shared minimum checklist for determining whether soy or beef complies with Brazilian law and with zero-deforestation and zero-conversion commitments.
The aim is for different monitoring systems to incorporate the same essential checks. Even if they use different tools, they would answer the same questions and produce results that producers, buyers, governments and investors could compare and use with greater confidence.
“Brazil does not need to start from scratch. We already have robust tools, but we need to align what is — or is not — being verified and ensure that information can be compared and used across the entire supply chain,” said Roberta.
From farm to market: traceability in practice
Presented in 2026, RCF Trace directly addresses one of the study’s central questions: how can environmental information verified at source travel with a commodity throughout the supply chain and be used with confidence by buyers and investors?
The report shows that Brazil already has advanced systems for verifying deforestation and environmental compliance on rural properties. However, fragmented criteria and gaps between production, storage, processing and trade continue to hinder end-to-end traceability and create uncertainties for international markets.
RCF Trace is designed to bridge this gap between the farm and the buyer. The project links farm-level data on deforestation, land use and carbon emissions to commercial transactions across three international supply chains. Transaction documents are independently verified, allowing the soy’s environmental attributes to follow it through traders, processors, manufacturers and retailers.
Rather than creating another platform focused solely on monitoring at source, the project tests how environmental data can be transformed into verifiable commercial evidence. The model also offers a complementary alternative to full physical segregation of soy, which can increase costs and create logistical challenges.
BVRio serves as secretariat to the Responsible Commodities Facility’s Environmental Advisory Board. The Board provides strategic guidance on the Facility’s operations, expansion plans and environmental governance.
