As 2021 begins, more companies are seeing their strategies for addressing deforestation deep down into their supply chains scrutinized.

"We need companies to make commitments that are specific to how they are addressing their supply chains," says Jessye Waxman, shareholder advocate with Green Century Capital Management, which has so far engaged dozens of businesses encouraging them to improve their "no deforestation" policies and practices.

Here’s what we’re up against. More than 1 million acres of forests have been lost since 1990, leaving the global stock at near 10 million acres, according to a July report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). While the rate of annual deforestation slowed to about 25 million acres between 2015 and 2020, the trendlines in several regions — especially countries in Africa and South America — aren’t moving in the right direction. Brazil, for example, recently recorded its highest rate of deforestation since 2008 during the period from August 2019 to July, an increase of 9.5 percent.

The vast majority of that destruction (up to 80 percent) is linked to commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, leather, timber, and pulp and paper. Cattle-rearing practices in Brazil are of particular concern among multiple NGOs. Yet, many companies hugely reliant on these resources aren’t actively fighting deforestation, according to data from research organizations including CDP and Global Canopy.

What’s more, of the companies that have made commitments, many have failed to deliver or to set deadlines — with some continuously pushing dates into the future or changing the rules by which they judge progress, according to both organizations.

CDP’s recent "Zeroing In on Deforestation Report" urged consumer products and food companies to devote more energy to this issue. It found, for example, that the supply chains for cattle and soy are particularly opaque — the largest meat processor in the world, JBS, fares "very poorly." Food and consumer products companies that buy meat from organizations such as these need to become far more engaged in tracing the regional origins of the product they’re buying, says Ling Sin Fai Lam, lead analyst on the report. "CPG companies are going to find it harder to meet their own goals if they don’t seek collaboration from people closer to the ground," she says.

Read the full article about fighting deforestation by Heather Clancy at GreenBiz.