The European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires European buyers to comply with due diligence requirements that ensure the product has not been produced on land that has been subject to deforestation. However, these measures are likely to lead to the exclusion of small farmers, who depend on layers of middlemen who lack a traceable system in place for verification and validation. For small farmers, traceability is relatively costly due to their lack of scale, while they are also marginalized within the local palm oil supply chains. It is therefore almost inevitable that this demand from EU buyers will be met by sourcing from larger plantations to meet EUDR compliance. This study maps the current palm oil supply chains in West Malaysia and then provides a critical analysis of how the EUDR fits within the tripartite standards regime of standard-setting, accreditation, and certification. A techno-political analysis shows that a stakeholder-led consensus-based approach which operates outside of democratic control, tends to create a community of practice (‘social world’) that develops a closed standard that does not meet the needs of weaker, marginal producers. While not necessarily intended to harm small producers, the implementation of a tripartite standards regime like the EUDR leads to the exclusion of small producers. The study also shows that a territorial approach to sustainability governance, which is part of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) standard, could achieve the goals of the EUDR if executed appropriately without the forced exclusion of small farmers from global supply chains.