A report published on Wednesday has shown that almost half of the companies most reliant on the commodities responsible for deforestation, and the financial firms that back them have no policy to control it.
The analysis done by non-profit Global Canopy, showed 201 or 40% of 350 companies with the greatest exposure to palm oil, soy, beef, leather, timber and pulp and paper, and 150 banks and asset managers which lend to or invest in them had no such policy.
The annual “Forest 500” of the group report is coming some weeks after a global deal was struck in Montreal by governments to protect biodiversity and as policymakers in the European Union and Britain plan tougher rules to force companies to do more to stamp deforestation out.
Although 100 of the companies had a deforestation commitment in place for all of the commodities to which they were exposed, Global Canopy said that only half were checking to ensure the policies were being followed. In contrast, a further 109 had no deforestation commitments in place for any of the commodities.
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Global Canopy defines the policy as one where the company states its priority forests, linked to commodities it uses or finances, or is certified by a credible scheme as being deforestation-free and says the lack of action on deforestation was hampering the company’s ability to hit the net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century target although the number of companies that have committed to it had grown five-fold in three years to 145.
“It is now universally accepted that ending tropical deforestation is pivotal to meeting vital global goals on both climate and nature,” said Niki Mardas, executive director of Global Canopy. “It is remarkable that while a great many of the companies in the Forest 500 have ambitious net zero targets, almost all of those risk missing them because of inaction on deforestation.”
The report said that ninety-two of the financial institutions most exposed to the companies also lacked such a policy broadly unchanged from the prior year.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
