‘Forest 500’ rates top players in race against deforestation

FMCG giants Danone, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benkiser, Kao and Unilever are among the top players tackling the problem of deforestation, according to a new ranking from charity Global Canopy Programme.

Banking group HSBC was also among the top scorers.

The data was drawn from over 40,000 data points from public and private sources. The Global Canopy Programme (GCP) identified, assessed and ranked 250 companies, with total annual revenues in excess of US $4.5 trillion; 150 investors and lenders; 50 countries and regions; and 50 other influential actors in this space.

According to GCP, these 500 operators control the complex global supply chains of key ‘forest risk commodities’ such as soya, palm oil, beef, leather, timber, pulp and paper that have an annual trade value of more than US $ 100bn and are found in over 50% of packaged products in supermarkets.

GCP maintains that deforestation and land use change cause more than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, undermine regional water security, and threaten the livelihoods of more than one billion people worldwide.

Thirty companies, many based in Asia and the Middle East, and numerous investors scored zero points. Countries received a range of scores, with Latin American nations scoring high in forested regions and the Netherlands and Germany coming top amongst countries that import forest risk commodities.

“We are currently all part of a global deforestation economy. Deforestation is in our chocolate and our toothpaste, our animal feed and our textbooks, our buildings and our furniture, our investments and our pensions,” said Mario Rautner, The Global Canopy Programme’s Drivers of Deforestation Programme Manager.

“Our goal with the Forest 500 is to provide precise and actionable information to measure the progress of society to achieve zero deforestation. Together, these 500 countries, companies and investors have the power to clean up global supply chains and virtually put an end to tropical deforestation.”

Read the full results here. www.forest500.org