Sustainable Brands reports on progress made since the signing of the New York Declaration on Forests on September 23, 2014. Last year, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) joined country leaders from around the world, civil societal groups, and leading global companies during the United Nations Climate Summit to discuss emissions reduction, strengthening climate resilience, and mobilizing political will for a meaningful and effective agreement. The article below recaps some of the key initiatives taken since these parties committed to zero deforestation one year ago. To read the full article, visit SustainableBrands.com.
Sustainable Brands – (September 23, 2015) – Several dozen companies that endorsed the New York Declaration on Forests at 2014’s United Nations Climate Summit are taking concrete steps to eliminate commodity-driven deforestation from their supply chains, according to a new report from Supply Change – a project convened by Washington D.C.-based non-profit Forest Trends.
Firm Commitments: Tracking Company Endorsers of the New York Declaration on Forests looks at public sustainability disclosures from 41 of the Declaration’s endorser companies, which include Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), The Kellogg Company, Danone, Unilever, Marks & Spencer, McDonald’s, Barclays, Nestlé and Cargill. Together with another 139 governments, financial institutions, indigenous community networks and civil society organizations, these companies have formally endorsed the Declaration’s goals to halve natural forest loss by 2020 and end it completely by 2030. Buy-in from the private sector is considered especially critical to the Declaration’s ambitions because the endorser companies are deeply dependent on the “big four” commodities responsible for most agriculture-driven deforestation – palm oil, soy, cattle, and timber and pulp.
Fast-forward one year, and slightly more than half of the companies examined have publicly disclosed progress toward their supply chain goals – including Cargill, which just last week released a new Policy on Forests; and APP, which last month announced the retirement of roughly 7,000 hectares (~17,300 acres) of commercial plantation areas to protect threatened carbon-rich peatlands — the first time that plantations on tropical peatland have been retired for conservation purposes worldwide.
Originally Published: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/organizational_change/sustainable_brands/one_year_after_new_york_declaration_forests_repo