New deforestation platform to track firms commitments

A new platform has been launched that will give investors and consumers more information on how firms are addressing deforestation and meeting the pledges they have made on the issue.

The platform follows the Forest 500 rankings, which identifies, ranks and tracks investors, companies and other organisations that could collaborate to eliminate tropical deforestation.

The Supply Change platform allows users to track the actions that companies are reporting against the commitments they have made in near real time.

The platform has been launched by the Forest Trends initiative Ecosystem Marketplace, in cooperation with WWF and CDP.

A report published to coincide with the launch has found that firms worth a total of nearly $4 trillion (£2.7tn) have promised to reverse their role in deforestation.

The report also finds that corporate leadership on sustainability has a significant impact, with one commitment from a major retailer spurring three more commitments from suppliers.

Michael Jenkins, Forest Trends founding president and CEO, said: “Transparency though public disclosure is a valuable tool for the world to gauge the corporate community’s progress in eradicating deforestation from key agricultural inputs. These new relationships that underline Supply Change harness the strength of our complementary skills to provide investors and other decision makers with free access to information that will accelerate the transition to a zero-deforestation economy.”