Traceability and geolocation readiness: what data we can provide per shipment

By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · 27 August 2026 · Reviewed by Budi Dharmawan, Head of QC, 4 September 2026

Search for supplier traceability data and you will find compliance software, written for the European importer. Useful, if you are the importer. Less useful if what you actually need is a straight answer from the factory about what arrives in the document pack — and what does not. This page is that answer; the wider question of what we will and will not claim about sourcing sits one level up in sustainability, honestly.

What travels with a container

This is the list. Each row says what the artifact demonstrates, what form it takes, and whether it comes automatically or when you ask. Where we have not been told what form something takes, the row says it is provided on request rather than naming a file type we have not seen — an invented format is worse than an honest gap, because you would build a process around it.

Several of those rows have a page of their own, because each is a document with its own rules and its own failure modes. The weathering certificate is the one carriers reject most often; the vanning survey is a commercial survey rather than a state inspection and the difference matters; certificate of origin and safety data sheet each have their own conventions. The document stack takes them in order. The certificate itself is covered at certificates of analysis, and what we hold and do not hold by way of certification is set out on certifications.

Geolocation data: where we actually stand

Now the part most supplier pages skip. A region-level sourcing statement and plot-level geolocation are not available from us. Not partially, not in a reduced form, not on request — they do not exist in our supply chain today. Our suppliers are expected to be able to provide this in future.

There is no date attached to that sentence and there is deliberately no commitment in it, because we do not have one to give. A supplier who answers a geolocation question with a target quarter is telling you about their marketing calendar. We would rather you plan against the present tense: today, the answer is no.

What we can do is be precise about where the line falls. Batch-level traceability is real and documented — the carton carries a batch number, the batch number ties to a certificate, and the retained sample means the batch still physically exists five years later. That chain runs from your container back to a production run. It does not run back to a plot of land, and no amount of paperwork on our side turns one into the other.

Why your side is asking

It helps to know where the obligation actually sits, because it explains why these requests arrive from importers rather than from regulators. Under the EU deforestation rules the duty to collect the geographic coordinates of the plots where a commodity was produced falls on the operator placing the goods on the EU market — and the operator is also the party expected to check that supplier-provided location data is complete and reliable. That is how the European Commission's own implementation FAQ, version 5 of April 2026, is read by compliance practitioners writing for that audience (ComplyMarket, EUDR guide, June 2026, viewed 27 August 2026).

Two mechanics are worth knowing before you write your data request, both as reported in a compliance-platform guide published 9 January 2026 (LiveEO, viewed 27 August 2026). Plots over four hectares must be described as polygons — latitude and longitude to six decimal places, enough points to trace the perimeter — while plots under four hectares may use a polygon or a single point. And the submission format is a standard geospatial one such as GeoJSON. Neither is a specification we can meet today; both tell you what a request that reaches us would have to ask for.

The same guide records a recent amendment allowing micro and small primary operators to identify land by postal address instead of coordinates, where the address clearly identifies the land or establishment. That is a feature of the regulation and we mention it only so the picture is complete — it describes a category of EU operator, not us, and it is not a route we are claiming.

Whether coconut shell charcoal falls inside the regulation's scope at all, and which deadlines attach, is a separate question with a real answer, and it is worked through against primary sources on EUDR and coconut charcoal. We are not going to re-derive it here in shorter form.

The limits, stated once

A document pack is evidence of process, not proof of origin. Everything in the table above demonstrates something specific and narrow: that a batch was tested, that it was weathered, that it was packed below a temperature, that it was loaded a particular way. None of it demonstrates which trees the shells came from, and we are not going to let a thick folder imply that it does.

The structural argument about coconut shells — that they are a byproduct of a harvest that was happening anyway — is a real argument and it is made properly on shells, not trees, including a plain account of what it does not prove. Where the shells come from as a matter of geography and trade is covered in the coconut belt supply chain. This page is the other half: the paperwork that exists, named honestly, with the gap left visible.