Kennedy’s Confection sits down with Niels Wielaard, founder and co-director of Satelligence, a social enterprise dedicated to tracking deforestation.
With over 20 years of experience in tropical commodity production landscapes, Niels Wielaard is a recognised expert in satellite-based monitoring of forests, agriculture, carbon, and water. His expertise has seen him serve as a technical advisor to the European Commission on the implementation of the EU Renewable Energy Directive. He has also been an invited member of the RSPO Working Group on GHG Emissions and a specialist in Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems for REDD+.
Niels says he is driven by a commitment to make a significant impact through the use of satellite-based analytics, particularly in promoting more sustainable agricultural commodities. Niels earned his MSc in Forestry, specialising in Remote Sensing, from Wageningen University in 2003.
The April 2025 CIAT–WCF report, Assessment of Best Practices, presented a rigorous framework to evaluate geospatial datasets used in cocoa-sector sustainability, focusing on accuracy, completeness, data management, and smallholder inclusiveness. It assessed datasets related to land use, carbon, and agroforestry using field validation in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Composite maps using multiple sources show strong performance, with cocoa detection precision of 73–80% and recall of 87–88%. The study shows the need for locally informed, independently validated data and better integration of smallholder perspectives for regulatory compliance and effective monitoring. Kennedy’s Confection ask Niels to shed more light on the report and Satelligence as a whole:
The CIAT report highlights Satelligence’s relatively high accuracy in identifying deforestation, especially in cocoa-producing regions. Given growing concerns around false positives and the risk they pose to smallholder farmers, how does Satelligence balance methodological rigor with the need to avoid unfair penalties—particularly in high-risk but low-capacity countries like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire?
Niels Wielaard: Accuracy is fundamental to everything we do, but high-quality data is just the starting point. When our systems flag potential deforestation, we treat it as the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one. Companies should always have the opportunity to provide counter-evidence, whether that’s through alternative data sources or contextual, on-the-ground information that satellites might miss.
This is particularly crucial in regions like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where smallholder farmers often lack the resources to navigate complex compliance systems. That’s why we’ve built partnerships with organisations like Fairtrade – to ensure smallholders can access support when it’s needed and defend themselves against any claims of non-compliance, in case of any false positives.
With the EU’s country benchmarking system soon to be implemented under EUDR, and considering Satelligence’s recent validation, how do you see your data influencing or interacting with official risk classifications? Could your platform help challenge or refine national-level assessments that may rely on outdated or less granular data?
NW: The EUDR Risk Classification looks at a lot of different parameters, not only deforestation numbers. What we bring to the table are granular, real-time insights that can help companies understand what’s actually happening – moving beyond generic, country-level assumptions to understand their specific commodity-related risks.
In other words, we see our role as complementary to official assessments, not competitive. We’re not challenging EU classifications, but we can provide the detailed, up-to-date data that companies need to make informed decisions and that regulators might find valuable in the future too. What is important to remember is that low-risk classification does not equal zero risk. Deforestation monitoring must be continuous.
Given that companies often juggle multiple data sources—some mandated by governments, others from private providers—how does Satelligence ensure its platform is interoperable with existing traceability or due diligence systems? Are there any specific formats or standards you recommend to support seamless EUDR compliance?
NW: Unfortunately, many companies are drowning in data from different sources – all with different approaches. We don’t want to add to that – it would be counterproductive for everyone. Our goal instead is to establish industry-wide standards, like our recent work developing a deforestation risk assessment standard for the cocoa sector. On the integration side of things, we’ve designed our systems to connect with existing platforms rather than replace them. Our goal is to make satellite monitoring data as seamless and cost-effective as possible.
While the CIAT report validates the technical accuracy of Satelligence’s monitoring, what strategies are in place to make your tools more accessible and actionable for smallholders and local cooperatives, especially those with limited digital infrastructure? How do you envision bridging the gap between high-resolution satellite data and on-the-ground decision-making?
NW: This is one of the most important challenges that we currently face. Thanks to our long-established partnerships with organisations like Fairtrade and Root Capital, we can support smallholder farmers and local cooperatives all over the world with EUDR compliance. These organisations have deep relationships and trust with farming communities in some of the most at-risk regions, and they can work with these cooperatives to ensure they are able to provide the necessary data and local context, while the farmers get access to comprehensive due diligence reports that they can then present to buyers as evidence of their compliance. This creates value for farmers rather than just imposing new requirements on them.
Editorial contact:
Editor: Kiran Grewal kgrewal@kennedys.co.uk
