UK supermarkets have been banned from selling certain items after calls on the Government from Aldi, Co-op, Lidl, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.
Legislation, set out at COP28 Nature Day last month, has been laid out to "ensure there is no place on our supermarket shelves for products which have been produced on land linked to illegal deforestation."
Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said palm oil, cocoa, beef, leather and soy will be included, and "businesses with a global annual turnover of over £50m – and which use over 500 tonnes of regulated commodities a year – are banned from selling such products if sourced from land used illegally."
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The move comes after a number of major UK retailers, along with the WWF, sent an open letter to the Prime Minister. They said: "While UK legislative progress has been delayed, 7.87 million hectares of primary forest has been lost in just the last two years.
"As business leaders, we know conversion of natural ecosystems is not required to continue production, and that UK consumers want to see an end to such destruction. We are businesses with commitments to ensure our supply chains comply with the laws we trade in."
The supermarkets also pointed out the EU adopted its own deforestation regulation in June, which will apply to companies with operations or supply chains in Northern Ireland, as reported in the Independent.
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