Agriculture and food

In 2017, the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) released its recommendations for climate-related disclosures in financial filings. The TCFD has since become the de facto global standard for the financial sector to report on climate change risks. This paper presents a framework for assessing deforestation-related risks in agricultural commodity supply chains that is aligned with the TCFD principles. The framework is based on CRR’s seven years of experience in the palm oil, soy, beef, and farmland sectors.

This report discusses the role of South Korean companies in the worldwide palm oil market and the country’s position as an owner of oil palm concessions, a buyer of palm oil products, and a financier of palm oil operations. The analysis highlights the country’s role in the palm oil “leakage market," which trades unsustainable palm oil from growers and producers that are not compliant with No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) policies.

This study, commissioned by Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), investigates the unsustainable practices linked to Neste's palm oil supply chain. Neste is the world's largest producer biofuel biodiesel and jet biofuel, while stressing its commitment to sustainability. The study finds that companies in its supply chain can be connected to at least 10,000 ha of deforestation, an area the size of Paris, in the period from January 2019 to June 2020, and around 13,000 fire alerts in 2019.

This report was compiled by ActionAid Netherlands and ActionAid Guatemala. It presents documented human rights violations through palm oil production in Guatemala and the links that exist between these violations and the Netherlands through the palm oil value chain and the Port of Rotterdam.

This report reveals that the largest U.S. asset managers, BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – known as the Big Three – have explicitly undermined efforts by consumer brands and agribusiness companies to halt deforestation. The Big Three collectively hold shares worth almost $700 billion in consumer brands with supply chain links to rainforest destruction, and tens of billions more in the agribusiness producers directly responsible for widespread deforestation. All three firms have voted against or abstained from voting on every single shareholder resolution requiring companies to act on deforestation since 2012, and lack clear policies to engage with companies on the issue, which is the second leading cause of climate change.

Forests and Finance is a website that reveals the role that finance plays in enabling tropical deforestation, which has been expanded to cover Brazil and Central & West Africa, as well as Southeast Asia. The website is a publicly searchable database, functioning as a transparency tool by providing CSOs and journalists a deep insight into financiers that are supporting forest-risk commodity companies. It is a joint initiative of the Forests & Finance Coalition, which includes Rainforest Action Network, Tuk Indonesia, Profundo, Amazon Watch, Repórter Brasil and BankTrack.

This new case study for Fair Finance Guide Netherlands shows that Dutch banks, insurance companies, and pension funds are financing deforestation in the Amazon and the Brazilian Cerrado-savannah, contributing to human rights violations, climate change, biodiversity loss and large-scale animal suffering.