Providing technical solutions to support legality
Supply chain tools
Increasingly, demand side measures such as the US Lacey Act or EU Timber Regulation aim to prohibit illegal sourced raw and processed materials from entering consumer markets.
In case of timber for example but this is applicable to other resources, all logs and products entering the EU must pass a legality due diligence process, the effectiveness is dependent on the availability and reliability of data about the companies involved in the harvest and transport of the timber. Reliable information is scarce, particularly about illegal activities of specific companies. Timber supply chains are complex and vulnerable to fraud at multiple points. As a result, conducting effective legality due diligence is challenging to say the least.
REM works to help address this problem in fundamental ways:
 Build capacity of national Independent Monitors to document severe environmental infractions with solid evidence, which in turns boost their credibility and enables their use by enforcement bodies, customs and buyers |  Develop visual data management tools such as the Open Timber Portal to help customs and importers access reliable data on environmental infractions easily | |
 Pilot supply chain tools such as the Logging Vehicle Live Monitoring System enabling tracking of logs from the point of extraction to point of sale, helping companies to demonstrate legality |  Pilot application of blockchain technologies to build trust of high risk timber supply chains (pilot project in development) | |