INSIGHT by World Economic Forum
| Yesterday, alongside the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2020, the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) officially launched the Forest Positive Coalition of Action, including 17 global consumer goods brands, retailers and manufacturers that will work together and use their collective voice to accelerate systemic efforts to remove deforestation, forest degradation and conversion from the key commodity supply chains of palm oil, soy, and paper, pulp and fibre-based packaging, and drive transformative change across the industry.
The Coalition is supported by the Tropical Forest Alliance hosted at the World Economic Forum. It is led by the respective company CEOs and co-sponsored at the CGF Board level by Carrefour and Mars, Incorporated, brings the world’s largest consumer goods brands together with a collective market value of US$1.8 trillion. Its ambition is to utilise its collective reach and knowledge, global networks and resources, to engage and collaborate with producers, suppliers and traders, as well as governments and civil society, to advocate for forest positive solutions. The Forest Positive Coalition for Action members are:
- Carrefour
- Colgate-Palmolive Company
- Danone
- Essity
- General Mills
- Grupo Bimbo
- Jerónimo Martins*
- Mars, Incorporated
- METRO AG
- Mondelēz International
- Nestlé*
- P&G*
- PepsiCo*
- Sainsbury’s
- Tesco
- Unilever*
- Walmart*
* Also members of the World Economic Forum
The Forest Positive Coalition of Action has committed to act in the following key areas:
〉Engage with suppliers and traders to ask they implement Forest Positive actions across their entire commodity operations;
〉Join forces to address forest conservation challenges in key production landscapes;
〉Encourage governments and stakeholders to create an enabling environment for forest conservation;
〉Ensure transparency and accountability by regularly reporting on progress.
As part of their commitments, members of the Coalition will work constructively with governments – both in producer nations and importing nations – to encourage them to put in place practical measures to support a forest positive future. The Coalition will advocate and support practises to change behaviours and processes at a macro-level to support global forests and not one specific area.
| Grant Reid, President & CEO, Mars, Incorporated and CGF Board Co-Sponsor of the Forest Positive Coalition, said, “We believe forest protection is a driver of economic growth, not a sacrifice to growth. Forest protection provides healthy ecosystems and supports productive landscapes and resilient communities. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, we must ensure that efforts to protect forests are part of the global response. This response requires all actors with an interest in ending deforestation and who are committed to being part of the solution to come together”.
| Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and CEO, Carrefour and CGF Board Co-Sponsor of the Forest Positive Coalition, said, “We are actively changing our model in order to become forest positive businesses. We are fully committed to engaging supply chain actors, taking action on the ground and working collectively to catalyse change. Multi-stakeholder action is critical, particularly political engagement at the national and regional levels, as is strong support from the investment community”.
The Forest Positive Coalition for Action will be officially announced as part of Climate Week 2020 where members of the Coalition, UK and Indonesia government representatives and the Tropical Forest Alliance will meet to discuss and take questions from the public on the Coalition, its ambitions and the roadmap to reaching the Coalition’s goals.
| Wai-Chan Chan, Managing Director, The Consumer Goods Forum said, “Deforestation continues to be a critical issue facing our planet today. Our event at New York Climate Week will showcase exactly how our Coalition is committed to on-the-ground actions that deliver impact at scale and will explain how we intend to be successful. We are also bringing a variety of voices to the table to ensure we engage from the get-go and effectively listen to the concerns of those fighting to mainstream the issue of deforestation and who support nature-based, innovative solutions. We are in this fight together”.
| Justin Adams, Executive Director of the Tropical Forest Alliance and Co-Director of the World Economic Forum Platform for Nature Based Solutions said: “The CGF Forest Positive Coalition for Action has the potential to be a game-changer in how some of the biggest brand companies work together – and partner with a broader set of actors – to clean up their supply chains, support sustainable landscapes and encourage aligned government action. The Tropical Forest Alliance and the World Economic Forum knows individual company action is insufficient, so we look forward to supporting the coalition on this important collective-action journey towards sustainability”.
| about
The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) is a global, parity-based industry network that is driven by its members to encourage the global adoption of practices and standards that serves the consumer goods industry worldwide. It brings together the CEOs and senior management of some 400 retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and other stakeholders across 70 countries, and it reflects the diversity of the industry in geography, size, product category and format. Its member companies have combined sales of EUR 3.5 trillion and directly employ nearly 10 million people, with a further 90 million related jobs estimated along the value chain. It is governed by its Board of Directors, which comprises 58 manufacturer and retailer CEOs. For more information, please visit: www.theconsumergoodsforum.com.
Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) is a global multistakeholder platform, initiated to support the implementation of private-sector commitments to remove deforestation from palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper supply chains. Hosted by the World Economic Forum, TFA now works with over 160 public, private and civil society actors, indigenous peoples and international organizations to catalyse high-impact partnerships to reduce commodity driven deforestation and build a forest positive future. It operates five regional platforms in Latin America, West and Central Africa, China, Europe and Southeast Asia. The work of the TFA is supported by the Governments of the Netherlands, Norway, Germany and the UK; and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. For more information please visit: www.tropicalforestalliance.org.
| All opinions expressed are those of the author. investESG.eu is an independent and neutral platform dedicated to generating debate around ESG investing topics.
