TFT publishes ‘Back to the Forest’ and shares how industry can bring transformation.
As of January 2019, The Forest Trust has become Earthworm Foundation.
Today TFT calls on pulp and paper producers, suppliers and buyers to choose a responsible and prosperous future. We’re publishing our ‘Back to the Forest’ paper, which shows how ambitious, forward-looking companies can secure their long-term supply chain and transform their sustainability performance.
Pulp does more than any other commercial wood-based industry to shape forests worldwide. Pulp production creates revenue, rural jobs and many great products. It often promotes good forest management. But in some cases it drives large-scale deforestation, illegal logging, peatland destruction, pollution, corruption and community and human rights violations.
Increasingly, companies are being asked and want to understand and manage distant environmental, social and governance challenges to which they are linked to through the raw material in their products. This is particularly the case for deforestation driven by agricultural commodities like palm, soy, cocoa and beef.
We see that the pulp and paper sector (as well as forest products like timber, charcoal and biomass) has faced less scrutiny, perhaps due to an assumption that issues on the ground are addressed by certification schemes. Yet pulpwood presents similar social and environmental challenges, and NGO pressure on the industry is growing from the boreal to the tropics, as the demand for forest products increases.
Certification schemes can offer limited assurance, but tend to be least effective in those parts of the world where they are most needed. Now, new partnerships and new technologies are helping leading companies to get back to the forest to monitor, report, and improve the ways in which their products impact people and nature.
TFT partners large companies like 3M, APP, Mars and Nestlé who are helping to lead positive change for the industry. Back to the Forest shares their inspiring examples.
Over the coming weeks and months we will share a series of related short videos, case studies and news items at #backtotheforest.
