How do we assess the Forest 500?
Since 2014, Forest 500 has been assessing the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions on the strength and implementation of their commitments on deforestation and human rights every year. Two assessment methodologies are used, one for companies and one for financial institutions, but each assesses the powerbrokers against the best practice for the sector.
Both assessment methodologies are reviewed annually to ensure that they continue to align with the evolving best practice. Through this alignment, the Forest 500 powerbrokers are evaluated against that best practice, meaning they can be held accountable to the commitments they have made, and that the powerbrokers can benchmark their performance against that of others.
How are the Forest 500 assessed?
The Forest 500 assessments use publicly available information, so any information that was available on the company or financial institutions’ website(s) at the time of the assessment period is incorporated in their assessment. All powerbrokers are assessed in their native language where possible, with a team of language consultants working on the assessments alongside the Forest 500 assessment team.
Company assessment methodology
Our company methodology has been aligned with the Accountability Framework Initiative’s (AFi) Common Methodology since 2020. The AFi outlines the fundamental best practice for companies operating in forest-risk supply chains, and outlines the fundamental best practice actions and reporting for companies operating in forest-risk supply chains.
Our 2023 company assessment methodology is available to download.
Download the company assessment methodology PDFFinancial institution assessment methodology
The 2023 financial institution methodology is aligned with the Finance Sector Roadmap, which builds off the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi), and closely aligns with the company methodology.
Our 2023 financial institution assessment methodology is available to download.
Download the financial institution assessment methodology PDFHow are companies and financial institutions scored?
Each company and financial institution received a total score out of 100, which is then converted into a band out of 5.
This total score is made up of the powerbrokers’ score for ‘Overall Approach’, combined with their commodity-specific scores for ‘Commitment/Policy Strength’, ‘Associated Human Rights’, and ‘Reporting and Implementation’.
If you are a representative from a company or financial institution and would like to find out more about your assessment, or our methodologies, then please do reach out to the Forest 500 team via email at [email protected], or use our contact form.
For companies
Companies are selected as a powerbroker for at least one commodity, but they can also produce or use other forest-risk commodities. If their exposure is not sufficient to be selected as a powerbroker for the other commodities they use, they are still assessed for the additional commodity under the Forest 500 methodology, but the scores are weighted lower for the ‘non-powerbroker’ commodity to reflect their reduced influence in that supply chain.
While companies also receive a score for each commodity, the commodity scores for which a company is not a powerbroker are given half the weighting of other commodities in their total score.
For financial institutions
For financial institutions, which are powerbrokers for all commodities, each commodity-specific score is weighted equally in their total score.
For more details, please see the full 2023 assessment methodologies for companies and financial institutions, as well as in our frequently asked questions (FAQs).