Chocolate and cocoa companies commit to sustainable supply chains at meeting with Prince Charles

By EP staff — The Prince of Wales has hosted senior executives of the world’s largest chocolate and cocoa companies to discuss ending deforestation in the cocoa supply chain. 

 

The meeting, held last week at Spencer House, served to launch the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, a project of The Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Trade Unit, in collaboration with the World Cocoa Foundation and the Sustainable Trade Initiative.

 

Executives from Nestlé, Mars, Hershey, Barry Callebaut, Blommer Chocolate Company, Cargill, CÉMOI, ECOM, Ferrero, Mondelez, Nestlé, Olam, and Touton were included in the event. Also in attendance were ministers and senior government representatives of the two leading cocoa-producing countries - Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana – as well as from Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, Norway and the UK also attended.

 

The meeting produced a statement of collective intent committing the companies to work together, in partnership with others, to end deforestation and forest degradation in the global cocoa supply chain, with an initial focus on Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

 

The initiative will develop, in consultation with the relevant cocoa producing country governments, farmers and farmer organisations, civil society organisations, development partners and other stakeholders, an actionable suite of measures to end deforestation and forest degradation, while improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers working in the cocoa supply chain.  

 

These measures are to be announced at the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP 23) at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference in November, 2017.

 

Photo: Ian Jones