掌握全球森林命運 民團評比5百大政商巨頭

Only a small minority of the power brokers controlling the global commodity supply chains that drive the world’s tropical deforestation are able to meet demand without destroying forests, finds the first ranking of these powerful players.

“Over the last decade, commodity production driven by global demand for food, feed and fuel products has been responsible for over 50 percent of deforestation and 60 percent of forest degradation in tropical and sutropical regions,” according to Global Canopy Programme, the UK charity that issued the ranking.

Now, a movement is afoot to cut tropical deforestation in half by 2020 and end it by 2030.

The Global Canopy Programme 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.

Together, these 500 entities – the Forest 500 – control the complex global supply chains of key “forest risk commodities” such as soya, palm oil, beef, leather, timber, pulp and paper.

With an annual trade value of more than US$100 billion, these commodities are found in over half of all packaged products on the world’s supermarket shelves.

Published in January, the ranking is based on a rigorous methodology and draws on over 40,000 data points from public and private sources, according to the Global Canopy Programme, a tropical forest think tank and UK charity.

Assessed against dozens of policy indicators, only seven of the Forest 500 scored the maximum number of points – companies Groupe Danone (France), Kao Corp. (Japan), Nestle S.A. (Switzerland), Procter & Gamble (USA) and Reckitt Benckiser Group (UK), Unilever (UK) and banking and financial services giant HSBC (UK).

At the other end of the scale, with zero points, are 30 companies, many based in Asia and the Middle East, and numerous investors.

Deforestation and land use change cause more than 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, undermine regional water security, and threaten the livelihoods of at least one billion people worldwide,

The countries included in the Forest 500 represent nearly 90 percent of the world’s tropical forests and almost 90 percent of the tropical deforestation over the last decade.

Latin American countries, including Colombia, Brazil and Peru, ranked highest.

Lower scoring countries include Madagascar, in part due to its high forest loss between 2000 and 2012, and Nigeria, for its relatively low forest policy and governance scores.

The most developed forest policies in commodity importing countries, such as those in the Netherlands and Germany, tend to be commodity specific and industry led, rather than government initiated.

Crucial importing countries such as China, which is responsible for importing over 22 percent of the value of all forest risk commodities, and India, a key importer and consumer of palm oil, achieved low scores.

As a group, the 250 companies are falling short of adopting policies that ensure a speedy transition to a zero deforestation economy by 2020, but individual actors are making good progress.

The consumer-facing home care, and cosmetics and personal care industries are shown to perform best, whilst the animal feed industry lags behind other sectors.

Companies with higher revenues scored better than those with lower revenues. Once companies surpass annual revenues of US$10 billion, policy scores increase sharply, averaging nearly double that of companies below the $10 billion threshold.

Publicly-listed companies score more than 50 percent higher than privately-owned companies and those with other governance structures.

The location of company headquarters is found to be a key differentiator with the best scoring companies headquartered in North America, slightly outperforming those in Europe and Latin America, while companies in the Asia-Pacific region lag behind.