Halting deforestation and associated human rights abuses: turning commitments into reality

The Forest 500 human rights briefing and webinar – “The human rights blindspot in deforestation action” – highlighted the critical link between deforestation and human rights abuses.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are often the best guardians of the world’s forests – a United Nations report found that there is 50% less deforestation on Indigenous lands.

And yet these people are on the frontlines of nature destruction, often facing threats and violence when protecting their rights, lands, resources and territories from encroachment linked to forest-risk commodity supply chains like beef and palm oil.

On average, a person was killed every other day in 2022 for defending their land or environment.

Companies and financial institutions must step up

Companies and financial institutions have a responsibility to ensure that they are not sourcing from or financing commodity supply chains linked to human rights abuses. Human rights must be integrated into their commitments and policies and implemented properly. But too often this is not happening.

“The latest [Forest 500] assessments show that just 1% of the companies that are most exposed to tropical deforestation risk have a policy that covers all of the human rights aspects that we assess in the Forest 500. Even [among] the companies and financial institutions with deforestation commitments, their policies rarely include human rights.”
– Emma Thomson, Global Canopy’s Forest 500 and Tracking Lead

Forest 500 assesses companies and financial institutions on whether they have publicly set and are implementing commitments on seven human rights issues. Three of these are especially pertinent at the point of deforestation and ecosystem conversion:

1. The requirement to test and secure the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples and local communities before any work proceeds and on an ongoing basis.
2. Respect for customary rights to land, resources and territory of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. These collective human rights of Indigenous Peoples exist, whether or not a title from the state has been issued.
3. Zero tolerance for violence and threats against forest, land and human rights defenders who protect environmental or human rights in a peaceful manner.

Commitments are few and far between, and implementation is weaker yet

For Indigenous Peoples, local communities and forest, land and human rights defenders, commitments are meaningless unless they are backed up by effective implementation.

The latest Forest 500 assessments show that only 15% of companies and 2% of financial institutions have made commitments on these three issues for at least one of the highest risk commodities for which they are assessed. Of these, only a fraction are publishing evidence of effectively implementing those commitments.

FPIC has seen the strongest progress on reporting, with more than a quarter (28%) of companies publishing evidence of their efforts to implement their commitments. But when it comes to zero tolerance for violence and threats against forest, land and human rights defenders, the scores plummet: a mere 5% of the companies with commitments on this issue are reporting evidence of implementation.

But there are some exceptions

There are a few notable exceptions. Hershey, Upfield Holdings (which owns Flora and Violife) and Danone (which owns Actimel, Activia and Alpro) are the only three companies in the Forest 500 that publish both (i) their commitments on these three issues, and (ii) evidence of how their commitments are implemented. For example:

For palm oil, Hershey outperforms Upfield Holdings and Danone because it:

• publishes evidence of actions taken to implement its commitments to secure FPIC and respect customary rights to land, resources and territory, and
• reports on its progress towards implementing those commitments by recording, in its Palm Oil Grievance Log, alleged FPIC violations and land conflicts in its supply chain.

Upfield Holdings and Danone publish evidence of actions taken to implement their commitments to secure FPIC and respect customary rights to land, resources and territory across all the commodities for which they are assessed.

All three companies publish some evidence of actions taken to implement their commitments on zero tolerance for threats against forest, land and human rights defenders.

See Hershey’s Supplier Code of Conduct, Deforestation and Conversion-Free Policy and Palm Oil Grievance Log; Upfield Holdings’ Pulp and Paper Policy, Business Partner Code of Conduct and Responsible Palm Oil Policy; and Danone’s Sustainability Principles and Implementation Note for Business Partners 2022.

Despite progress, gaps remain

Without consistent implementation across all commitments and commodities, companies remain at risk of contributing to human rights abuses through their supply chains. Transparent reporting on progress is imperative. Without it, it is not possible to know whether commitments are being implemented effectively.

Hershey, for example, scores full marks for publishing evidence of implementation and reporting on its progress towards its commitments to securing FPIC and respecting customary rights to land, resources and territory – but only for palm oil. It does not report on its progress towards implementing those same two commitments for soy and pulp and paper, despite being a powerbroker for all three of these commodities.

And, despite publishing evidence of actions taken to implement its commitments on zero tolerance across all the commodities for which it is assessed, Hershey does not go further and report on its progress towards these commitments.

Neither Upfield Holdings nor Danone report progress towards their commitments to securing FPIC, respecting customary rights to land, resources and territory or implementing zero tolerance, despite having published evidence of actions to implement them.

What companies and financial institutions can do next

All companies and financial institutions need to do more to address human rights risks in their supply chains and portfolios, and understand that consultation with affected rights holders, including Indigenous Peoples, is an ongoing process.

But they are not alone in this process. Companies should refer to the Accountability Framework initiative’s Operational Guidance and the SIRGE coalition guide (on FPIC specifically). Financial institutions can follow the Finance Sector Roadmap. Both should report annually on their actions.