Accenture, osapiens Map DS Smith's 250-Plant EUDR Supply Chain

Accenture and osapiens have worked with DS Smith to build full traceability into the origin and movement of materials covered by the EU Deforestation Regulation across more than 250 plants and facilities in over 30 countries spanning the company's Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. The program gives the international sustainable packaging company auditable proof of where EUDR-relevant materials in its packaging originate, tracking them from source through production and distribution ahead of the regulation's application at the end of 2026. The initiative consolidated previously separate supply chain systems, supplier onboarding and reporting processes into a single platform, the osapiens HUB, replacing a fragmented data environment with one centralized system.

 

A Platform Built to Handle 250 Plants Across 30 Countries

 

The scale of the review itself was substantial: DS Smith, Accenture and osapiens examined sourcing, manufacturing, logistics and sales processes across the full EMEA footprint before consolidating supplier and traceability data into the shared platform. Accenture led process transformation, supplier enablement, systems integration and program scaling, while osapiens supplied the underlying technology, a division of labor that let DS Smith move from disparate regional systems to one centralized data environment without building the platform internally.

Since implementation, the system has processed more than 25,000 supply chain workflows and automatically monitored nearly 25,000 land plots, the geographic parcels tied to raw material sourcing that the EUDR requires companies to trace. Almost 10,000 compliance-related cases have moved through automated case management on the platform, and more than 1,000 suppliers have been onboarded through a single digital process, figures that suggest the program has moved well past a pilot phase into operational use across DS Smith's supply base.

 

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Regulatory Pressure Is Pushing Companies to Build Data Infrastructure Early

 

Matias Pollmann-Larsen, Accenture's Global Risk, Resilience and Sustainable Value Chain lead, tied the DS Smith program to a broader pattern he says is showing up across Accenture's client base. "Nearly 80% of supply chain leaders tell us that uncertain geopolitical regulatory requirements have made operating their businesses more difficult over the past six months," he said, adding that the pressure driving that response "is not going away." His framing positioned the DS Smith work as a case of a company building durable data infrastructure ahead of a specific compliance deadline rather than scrambling to respond once the EUDR's application date arrives.

Sakis Miliotis, IT director for Paper, Paper Supply Chain, Recycling and Sustainability at DS Smith, described the practical difficulty the program addressed directly. "For an organization operating across as many countries and facilities as DS Smith, having reliable, consistent data about your supply chain is not straightforward," he said, noting that the new system gives teams a "clear, auditable view of EUDR relevant materials from source to delivery" that the company can build on "as compliance requirements evolve." Stephan de Barse, osapiens' chief revenue officer, framed the underlying problem in similar terms, saying most organizations don't lack supply chain data so much as they have it "in too many places, in too many formats, with too many gaps."

 

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Accenture and osapiens Are Taking the Same Model to Other Sectors

 

Beyond DS Smith, Accenture and osapiens have expanded their partnership into a broader joint offering aimed at clients facing similar supply chain complexity across multiple sectors, combining Accenture's industry and technology expertise with the osapiens platform's multi-tier supplier mapping, supplier intelligence, continuous risk monitoring and automated compliance capabilities. That expansion suggests the companies view the DS Smith engagement as a proof point for a repeatable model rather than a one-off project scoped narrowly to deforestation compliance, positioning the partnership to address other EU regulatory regimes that require similar traceability, such as due diligence and reporting rules extending beyond deforestation-linked commodities.

 

The EUDR's End-2026 Deadline Will Test Whether the Data Holds Up

 

Whether the traceability system DS Smith has built can withstand actual regulatory scrutiny will only become clear once the EUDR's application date arrives at the end of 2026 and enforcement begins in earnest. The volume of workflows and land plots already processed suggests the infrastructure is operating at meaningful scale, but the real test will be whether auditors and regulators accept the underlying data as sufficient proof of deforestation-free sourcing across a supply base this geographically dispersed. How well the Accenture-osapiens model performs under DS Smith's specific regulatory pressure will likely shape how quickly other packaging and forestry-linked manufacturers adopt similar centralized traceability platforms rather than building compliance systems in-house.

 

Source: osapiens