Following the commitments made at COP26, over the past year, the Tropical Forest Alliance, hosted by the World Economic Forum, with support from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, has facilitated the process for the agricultural commodity companies to develop the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C.
Food and land-use systems account for around a third of all greenhouse gas emissions and it is land-use change, such as clearing forest to make way for farms, that drives these emissions. To address this critical issue, the CEOs of leading agri-commodity companies committed – at COP26 in Glasgow – to developing a shared roadmap focused on reducing emissions from land-use change.
The Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C, released at COP27 in Egypt, represents a sector-wide plan for addressing forest loss in supply chains and accelerating collaboration with others to achieve that goal. It commits the 14 companies to implement time-bound plans and report publicly on their progress towards the targets on an annual basis.
The roadmap sets out sectoral plans for cattle, soy and palm oil – the production of which is a leading driver of forest loss – to ensure that actions concentrate on areas where they will have the most impact. It also outlines how signatories will engage and collaborate with other stakeholders, namely governments, supply chain actors and financial institutions, for wider support of the roadmap’s commitments. This includes strengthening policies and regulations and incentivizing farmers and ranchers to protect natural resources.
Wei Dong, CEO of COFCO International said: “We congratulate TFA, WBCSD, the involved governments and other signatories for achieving this progress which represents a significant sector milestone in eliminating commodity-driven deforestation in line with a 1.5°C pathway.”
