Commercial agriculture drives over 70% of forest destruction in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Commodities most strongly linked to deforestation include palm oil, soy, timber, pulp, and cattle. This is often due to illegal logging and changes in land use.
A growing number of retailers, manufacturers, processors and traders in the food, fuel, and fibre sectors are making public commitments to establish deforestation-free supply chains. The rise of net-zero emissions commitments may provide the strongest impetus yet to eliminate deforestation from commodity production, sourcing, and financing. Such commitments doubled in 2020 alone and have now collectively been issued by companies with combined revenue of more than half the US’s annual GDP.
To tackle agricultural emissions, UK supermarket Tesco has recognized the need to follow its supply chain upstream – to origins in Brazil, Indonesia, and elsewhere – and institute a strong no-deforestation and no-conversion strategy. For instance, the difference between conversion-free sourcing and conversion-intensive sourcing for Tesco’s 500,000-ton annual soy purchases (primarily for animal feed) could be more than 100,000 tons of CO2-equivalent per year, which is equivalent to roughly 20% of the company’s agriculture supply chain emissions.
Companies also need to be aware of the potential for reputational damage. Recently some of the UK’s best-known brands such as Cadbury’s Chocolate, Anchor Butter, and Cathedral City Cheddar have been linked to the destruction of Brazilian forest through soya – a protein-rich cattle feed supplement.
