Group items tagged

In its new position paper, Halting Deforestation and Achieving Sustainability, the Rainforest Alliance addresses the recent surge in deforestation-free pledges. The paper argues the deforestation-free trend is an exciting development, but it needs definition, focus, and accountability to deliver lasting benefits for forests, people and the planet.

Institutional investors representing over half a trillion dollars in assets under management are calling on four major palm oil producers to adopt an immediate moratorium on deforestation and join the growing effort within the industry to establish traceable, deforestation-free palm oil supply chains. Led by Green Century Capital Management, investors called on the companies to cease their efforts to weaken the existing threshold for no-deforestation.

The most recent corporation to join the growing movement toward deforestation-free palm oil sourcing is ConAgra, whose brands, the company stated, can be found in 99 percent of American households. 

More than three-quarters (77 percent) of Nestlé's agricultural commodities are verified as deforestation-free, the company announced Tuesday.

In our Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace report, Supply Change: Tracking Corporate Commitments to Deforestation-free Supply Chains, 2016, we have tracked 579 individual commitments from 366 companies - up from 307 commitments from 243 companies in March of last year - and it shows that, of those 366 companies, most still haven't reported progress on their pledges.

Deforestation due to palm oil production is the single biggest threat to orangutans, but new deforestation-free standards that cover about 60% of the industry could help secure the primate's future. "We can now break the link between palm oil and the extinction of orangutans," says Michelle Desilets, executive director of the Orangutan Land Trust.

ConAgra Foods is the latest food giant to agree to eliminate any palm oil supplier engaged in deforestation. The company made the commitment in response to a shareholder proposal filed by Green Century Capital Management and the New York State Common Retirement Fund.

Palm Oil Free Certification programme launches in UK and Australia A new certification programme has launched to validate consumer products that make no use of palm oil, which has been blamed for fuelling deforestation in Asia. Set up by a group of women experts, the Palm Oil Free Certification Accreditation Programme (POFCAP) is now in operation in Australia and the UK following approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, IP Australia, and IPO UK. Fourteen other nations have applied to introduce the label. Australia-based eco cleaning products company Clean Conscience is the first to carry the label, and the group is working with a host of other companies on certification. Despite improvements to tackle deforestation, POFCAP said "only 17% of all palm oil used can be classed as 'non-conflict'". The scheme is based on extensive research and trusted methods to trace all potential palm oil and palm oil derivative ingredients of a product back to their source. (Business Green)

Large investors withdraw a shareowner resolution after the packaged food giant agrees to remove tree-cutting palm oil suppliers from its supply chain.

Colombia is the latest country to join the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, which aims to create a global movement for deforestation-free cocoa.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge, a group of the world's biggest palm oil companies committed to building an industry free of deforestation and labour exploitation, has disbanded less than two years after it was launched.

You've heard about sustainable beef, but the fast food giant is focusing its European supply chain sustainability efforts on packaging. 

Timberland and the Smallholder Farmers Alliance have partnered to provide Haitian farmers with a sustainable economy and to reduce deforestation. SFA will give the farmers who plant trees free cotton seeds, training and tools, while Timberland says it will purchase a certain amount of its global cotton supply from Haiti.

As part of its CanopyStyle initiative, environmental NGO Canopy has released an updated and expanded edition of its Hot Button Report, a ranking of eleven viscose and rayon producers that represent 70 percent of global viscose production. The report is the first tool of its kind to enable fashion brands and retailers to robustly assess producers' impacts on the world's forests, as well as their leadership in forging solutions to eliminate endangered forest fiber from the rayon and viscose supply chain.