by Sarah Rogerson
This year we are adding an extra 100 companies to the Forest 500 to allow greater visibility of the corporate powerbrokers linked to tropical deforestation than ever before.
Forest 500 is the first and only initiative to identify the 500 largest players in the deforestation economy, and rate their policies to address deforestation across their supply chains.
As corporate commitments to address deforestation linked to particular commodities continue to multiply, and the 2020 deadline for many of these commitments draws near, it is more important than ever to get a full picture of who the corporate players are and what, if anything, they are doing to tackle deforestation.
What’s new this year?
For our 2018 update, we are adding 100 companies to our selection of powerbrokers. Growing from 250 to 350 companies, the new list now includes the likes of Amazon, Royal Dutch Shell and Suguna - one of India’s largest poultry companies.
This change shifts the focus of Forest 500 solely to the major corporate players, companies and financial institutions, in forest risk commodity supply chains. This will allow us to get an even more complete picture of the companies that have the most influence to stop tropical deforestation and concentrate our efforts to drive change among them.
Digging into the detail
By identifying more players, we can have a clearer understanding of which companies are acting on these issues, what they are doing, and who is lagging behind. This will allow more companies to see where they sit in comparison to their peers and highlight which leaders are tackling deforestation in their supply chains, as well as the areas where more attention is needed.
Increasing our coverage of companies will improve our ability to compare the supply chains of different commodities. To make real progress, commitments should cover all relevant commodities, apply to all of a company’s operations and be time-bound.
For instance, we have long known that despite being a key driver of deforestation the cattle sector has been neglected by company policies. Rating more companies in cattle and other supply chains will mean we have even more information to better identify companies that are lagging behind, and dig deeper into the differences between the supply chains.
When will the scores of the new companies be released?
The assessments of the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions will be published at the end of the year. In the meantime, you can look up the powerbrokers’ past scores here or in our 2017 annual report , or visit our website at www.forest500.org.
Sarah Rogerson and Viera Ukropcova
Photo: jai Mansson via flickr.com, creative commons licence.