Over the last decade, hundreds of global companies have made public commitments to eliminate deforestation from their operations and extended supply chains, largely by targeting the four big forest-risk commodities: cattle, palm oil, soy and timber.
Today, nearly 500 global companies have committed, with varying degrees of specificity, to addressing deforestation within their businesses. Yet with 2020 just around the corner, still only a handful of businesses disclose quantitative progress toward actually eliminating tropical forest loss from their commodity supply chains. Many hundreds more are exposed to deforestation risk, but have yet to set public commitments or take specific actions to address it, let alone report on their progress.
This investor brief, undertaken in partnership with Forest Trends’ Supply Change, takes stock of progress on corporate zero-deforestation commitments, and clarifies the data needed by institutional investors to monitor corporate progress. Our research indicates that of the 484 companies that have set commitments to source forest-risk commodities more sustainably, only 72 have set zero/zero-net deforestation commitments. Of those 72, only 21 – or just 29 percent- have disclosed quantitative progress towards a zero/zero-net deforestation deadline, which is essential data for institutional investors evaluating and mitigating deforestation risk.
As investors engage with companies in their portfolios to press for robust no-deforestation commitments, clear and comparable data on corporate progress is urgently needed. This investor brief both clarifies the state of public corporate no-deforestation commitments and lays out the case for elevating two key reporting metrics from companies:
What annual percentage of the commodity produced or purchased is in compliance with no-deforestation principles?
What annual percentage of their suppliers of a commodity is in compliance with no-deforestation principles?