Today, fourteen of the world's largest agricultural commodity and trading companies released a plan to address deforestation associated with palm, beef and soy production in biomes around the world. This plan is in response to a joint Corporate Statement of Purposemade at COP26, in which they agreed to lay out a plan by COP27 to set agricultural production and trade on a 1.5C pathway to help meet global climate goals. While the plan released today represents progress for some commodities, it represents a step back for others and ultimately falls short of the 1.5C pathway that was promised.
In response, World Wildlife Fund-US released the following statement from Carter Roberts, President and CEO:
"A year ago, the world's largest agricultural commodity traders stood up in Glasgow and committed to do their part to deliver on the stable climate and intact nature we all need. Today those companies issued a roadmap that demonstrates progress on palm oil and steps forward on beef but falls well short of what is needed on soy and falls short on expectations that the roadmap delivers what's needed for a 1.5-degree future.
"We commend the palm oil sector for strong commitments that cover supply from all origins. This builds on leadership from governments, supply chain actors and civil society, as well as strong progress in key landscapes, particularly Indonesia in recent years. The cattle sector commitments also demonstrate progress, with a clear commitment to end all deforestation in the Amazon by 2025, legal and illegal, for direct and indirect suppliers. However, the language regarding cattle commitments in the Cerrado is contradictory and may not cover the critical issue of habitat conversion beyond deforestation. Importantly, the cattle sector made no commitments to address issues of deforestation and land conversion in other biomes. While this is a good start, more must be done.
"For soy, the roadmap includes deforestation but not habitat conversion. In so doing, it cherry picks which lands it will cover, leaving out significant parts of the most important landscapes, including 74% of the Cerrado in Brazil where 250 million tons of greenhouse gases are emitted on a yearly basis. Finally, the absence of a meaningful cutoff date will surely spark a race-to-the-bottom since producers will be paid to accelerate habitat destruction in advance of a commitment date 3 years away.
"These companies hold the key to agricultural production practices and Scope III emissions for food manufacturers and retailers around the world. They've made progress in some parts of their business but we know they can do more in others, and if agricultural commodity traders don't do more, particularly with soy in places like the Cerrado, then neither can thousands of companies around the world that buy from them.
"There's a clear path for agricultural companies to shift food production to degraded land. It begins with making commitments that match the expectations made a year ago in Glasgow. The financial world, governments, and WWF stand ready to help."
Mauricio Voivodic, Executive Director of WWF-Brazil, added:
"This roadmap presents some advances as companies are finally recognizing that they need to eliminate the destruction of ecosystems from supply chains. However, it's still frustrating that ecosystems like Cerrado are not yet fully and consistently considered in the presented commitments of the soy and cattle sectors.
"The absence of a clear cut-off date and of targets to eliminate conversion from the soy supply chain locks the sector in a trajectory of high carbon emissions and continuing loss of carbon emissions. Science demonstrates that deforestation and conversion must be urgently eliminated from the commodities supply chains to decrease global GHG emissions sufficiently and reach the 1.5- target."
