The two-day conference was convened by International Cocoa Diplomacy (ICD) in collaboration with NielsenSmith, and brought together stakeholders from across the cocoa value chain, including policymakers, producers, financiers, and sustainability experts
Cocoaradar editor Anthony Myers, joined discussions spanning sustainability regulation, trade sovereignty, finance, and technology-driven transformation framed by a central question: how can cocoa-producing countries move from adapting to global rules toward shaping them?
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Across panels and keynote addresses, speakers emphasised that sustainability regulations – while necessary – risk reinforcing structural inequities if implemented without producer-country leadership.
New frameworks such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) were repeatedly cited as reshaping market access and cost structures.
Participants warned that compliance costs, particularly for traceability and carbon accounting, could serve as de facto trade barriers for smallholder-dominated supply chains in West Africa and beyond. The prevailing sentiment, however, was not resistance – but repositioning.
“The issue is not whether producers comply,” one panellist noted. “It is whether they are empowered to design systems that work for farmers, ecosystems, and markets simultaneously.”