Nearly half of companies with deforestation risk aren’t addressing it

“New research by the Forest Trends Supply Change initiative, however, shows that 44 percent of the 865 companies most associated with deforestation risk haven’t made any public commitments to reduce that risk. Specifically, according to analysis summarized in “Targeting Zero Deforestation,” just 484 of the 865 companies that Supply Change identifies with the most forest-risk exposure have committed to sourcing commodities sustainably, and just 72 of those companies, or 8 percent, have committed to achieving either “zero deforestation” or “zero net deforestation” for at least one forest-risk commodity.

“Authors speculate that the low number of commitments related directly to deforestation may reflect a lack of consensus on what, exactly, constitutes a forest — a surprisingly contentious issue reflecting wide variance in tree height, density and past human contact.”

FULL STORY published July 17, 2019 via GreenBiz.com