FOREST POSITIVE COLLECTIVE ACTION

Corporations that buy, trade, and sell soft commodities and their products including soy, beef, paper & pulp, and palm oil have tremendous leverage in demanding that what they source is not associated with deforestation. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Encourage companies to take necessary actions to meet their sustainability commitments
• Support companies in their efforts to achieve transparency across their entire supply chains
• Ensure a just transition to sustainable supply where costs are shared across actors

Large or small, the close proximity producers and farmers have to the landscape including agricultural lands and forests makes them vitally important in efforts to stop deforestation and mitigate climate change. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Ensure producers (particularly smallholders) do not carry unjust risk or financial burden in transitioning to sustainable practices
• Better understand and employ location-specific solutions to address producers’ challenges in shifting practices
• Build producers’ capacity to produce deforestation-free soft commodities through cross-sector partnerships and cooperatives

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) are key stewards of the world’s forests. Their everyday lives depend on forests for their livelihoods, traditions, and way of life. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Ensure policies protecting the rights of IPLCs are in-place across sectors and enforced
• Disseminate and increase uptake of forest-friendly agricultural practices used by IPLCs
• Broadly feature the diverse knowledge and insights of IPLCs at events dedicated to stopping deforestation from soft commodity production

Transformative impact requires supply chain companies to complement individual supply chain action by engaging in jurisdictional approaches. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Define concrete opportunities for private sector engagement and investment in priority jurisdictions
• Facilitate comprehensive and integrated land use planning reflective of the realities on the ground and tailored to local needs
• Assess and reward geographies that become reliable sources for sustainable products

In countries that produce soft commodities, enacting and enforcing robust laws and regulations that clearly outline what constitutes illegal deforestation is one of the most important steps that can be taken in the fight against deforestation. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Create enabling policy conditions wherein companies are incentivized to source sustainable products along the value chain
• Create a level playing field among industry and establish mechanisms to hold industry to account when operating outside of the law
• Enable those who depend on forest products to pursue alternative livelihoods  

Countries that drive significant demand for soft commodities must take action to implement regulatory and non-regulatory measures that lead to decreased deforestation and conversion. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Draft and implement robust regulation in the EU that encourages transformation in tropical forest countries and strengthens supply chain action, supported by multistakeholder processes.
• Determine a path to demand-side regulation for key countries worldwide.

Emerging markets play an increasing role in the global trade for forest risk commodities – China alone represents 62% of global soy imports, 32% for pulp & paper and 11% for palm oil. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Increase awareness among target stakeholders of deforestation risks in commodity supply chains in key emerging markets
• Encourage emerging market economies to take action to decouple production and consumption from driving commodity-driven deforestation.

Civil society must influence decision-making in the public and private sectors to spur greater ambition, accountability, and sustained action. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Build impactful partnerships between NGOs and the private sector to address challenges in on-the-ground implementation.
• Conduct campaigns and targeted advocacy using the best available information that create pressure for companies to act and support enabling conditions for action.
• Consistently advocate for and monitor company performance relative to clear guidelines so that good actors are recognized while pressure can be applied to those with weaker performance.

Transparent and timely reporting must become a standard practice for companies across soft commodities sectors. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Harmonize and operationalize guidance from various measurement, monitoring and reporting platforms to allow companies to provide consistent information for verifying the sustainability of their products.
• Encourage adoption of public reporting as standard practice for companies resulting in more transparency across entire sectors.

Innovative finance models are key to unlock sustainable and deforestation-free commodity finance but will require private sector engagement and coordination with emerging jurisdictional initiatives to reach scale. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Better integrate financial institutions into supply chain efforts.
• Continue to build robust, scalable instruments that enable the financing of sustainable supply chains.
• Scale carbon finance and other mechanisms alongside private sector finance.

Companies require credit and other financial services to operate and while there has been progress on increasing sustainable finance flows in commodity production, they only represent one-fifteenth of agriculture finance. Collective actions are necessary to:

• Create supportive regulation and policy that penalizes investments linked to deforestation.
• Engage investors to promote awareness and action on risks related to investments in deforestation linked equity and debt instruments.
• Engage with suppliers throughout the value chain to create the business case for sustainable practices and deforestation as a material risk.