CGF Members Endorse EU Position Paper Calling for “Smart Mix” of EU Legislative Action on Imported Deforestation

The paper is the conclusion of a large and growing group of companies from across the supply chain, and NGOs, that participated in the Tropical Forest Alliance’s series of roundtable discussions on action to protect forests held between April and July 2020.

The paper suggests that a ‘smart mix’ of measures by the EU is necessary to help tackle the negative impacts on forests associated with the production of forest risk commodities, including:

• Partnerships between the EU and producer countries to put in place the enabling conditions necessary to protect forests and improve the standards of production of agricultural commodities.
• EU legislation to introduce an obligation of due diligence on companies involved in commodity supply chains, and to put in place other demand-side measures to support markets for sustainably produced commodities
• Dialogue with other consumer countries, to ensure that stricter standards in the EU market do not simply divert unsustainably produced products away to other markets.
• Measures to steer flows of finance and investment away from unsustainable and towards sustainable activities and supply chains
• Encouragement for robust, consistent and practical systems and approaches to enable companies to assess, verify and report on risk and risk mitigation within their supply chains. 

Government and stakeholder engagement is one of the Coalition’s four Coalition-wide Actions. By working with governments to create enabling environments for forest positive policies and collaborating with NGOs to inform its approach and implement participatory strategies, the Coalition believes its work will be stronger. Currently, the Coalition is initially focusing its government engagement efforts in Brazil, China, the European Union and Indonesia.

The Forest Positive Coalition was formed in 2020 by The Consumer Goods Forum and brings together 18 of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers, with a combined market value of $1.8 trillion, to take collective action to remove deforestation, forest conversion and degradation from key commodity supply chains. For more information about the Coalition’s actions to create a forest positive future, visit the Coalition’s website.

For more details about CGF members’ endorsements of the paper and the CGF’s actions on deforestation, visit www.tcgfforestpositive.com or reach out to the CGF Forest Positive team.