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Search Last week, The Consumer Goods Forum’s (CGF) Environmental Sustainability team attended the World Economic Forum’s Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) annual meeting, which took place in the Colombian capital of Bogotá. Under the theme, “A Forest Positive Future: Accelerating the Decade of Delivery”, the meeting convened over 200 leaders from government, business and civil society and was co-hosted by the Colombian government. The meeting saw key players come together to accelerate efforts to reduce commodity-driven deforestation, and the agreement of a number of commitments that will contribute to the Alliance’s goal of protecting the world’s tropical rainforests. With over 50% of its land area forested, Colombia has the second-highest biodiversity density in the world after Brazil.
On the final day of the conference, Environmental Sustainability Director Ignacio Gavilan took part in a panel discussion entitled “Collectively Accelerating Progress and Impact” alongside representatives from Climate Focus, Government of Colombia, Eat Better Wa’ik, 4SD and COFCO. During the panel, speakers discussed how to accelerate the implementation of current commitments as well as the next steps from 2020 onwards. Ignacio shared that the CGF is, at present, reviewing and analysing what has worked (and what has not) during recent years. Speakers agreed that collaboration between key actors is now more important that ever. Robust and well implemented landscapes approaches together with increased transparency throughout the supply chain will help consumer good companies accelerate implementation, the panel concluded.
“It’s quite simple. Life on earth isn’t possible without forests because they are integral to ecosystems and livelihoods around the world. While the original commitment was to eliminate deforestation from commodity supply chains by 2020, companies and governments have made important progress to enhance transparency and clean up supply chains over the last decade. It is only by coming together and harnessing the power of the full Alliance to force through real systemic change that protecting our forests for future generations can be achieved,” said Justin Adams, Director, Tropical Forest Alliance.
