Not on target: companies must do more to deliver the New York Declaration on Forests

In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) set a clear target for removing deforestation from company supply chains by 2020. Five years on, the urgent need for action to mitigate climate change is ever-more apparent, and tropical forests are recognised as essential if we are to stabilise the climate and protect biodiversity. Yet tropical forests continue to be cleared.

The NYDF’s 10 goals have been signed by over 190 organisations including 49 companies and 10 financial institutions. Goal 2 committed them to “support and help meet the private sector goal of eliminating deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities […] by no later than 2020”.

As 2020 approaches, the latest NYDF Progress Assessment confirms that we are going to miss the goals set for next year. These include Goal 2 to eliminate commodity driven deforestation and the overarching Goal 1, to halve global deforestation rates by 20201, confirming earlier warnings.

Global Canopy’s Forest 500 project has been assessing the 500 largest powerbrokers in the supply chains linked to tropical deforestation annually since 2014. We assess powerbrokers on the strength of their public commitments to address deforestation and their self-reported progress against these commitments. Using the 2018 Forest 500 data, we have assessed the individual progress that the companies and financial institutions that signed the NYDF in 2014 have made towards Goal 2. The Forest 500 includes 31 NYDF parent signatory companies (in two cases two subsidiaries of a parent companies have signed the declaration).

This briefing looks at the progress made by these companies and by the financial institutions that have signed the New York Declaration on Forests.

Photo: Andrew Rowe via flickr.com, creative commons

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