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Search The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Forest Positive Coalition was very pleased to have been recently recognised by the UK Government as a source for positive change to help stop commodity-driven deforestation. In a written response to the recommendations from the Global Resource Initiative (GRI), the UK Government referenced the CGF and its Forest Positive Coalition as two examples of collaborative initiatives which involve UK companies leading industry efforts to build a first positive future.
The response also mentioned the UK Government’s active support for the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA), which brings together governments, companies, and NGOs working to supply deforestation-free commodities. The CGF helped co-found the TFA, which is now one of the Coalition’s implementing partners.
“The government also actively promotes efforts to align collective global action, between producers, consumers, companies and civil society,” the response read. “In September, the TFA supported The Consumer Goods Forum to launch the Forest Positive Coalition for Action, a group of 17 major consumer goods companies with a collective market value of US$1.8 trillion, who are committed to delivering a forest positive future through their supply chains and market influence.”
In the response’s ministerial foreword, the Right Honourable Lord Zac Goldsmith, Minister for the Pacific and the Environment, and Lord Callahan, Minister for Climate Change and Corporate Responsibility, also emphasised the need for continued collaborative action in fighting deforestation. “No single country or sector can deliver the change that is so urgently needed: only by working together we will be able to deliver for the health of our planet and all the people that depend on it,” they wrote.
The CGF was honoured to welcome the Rt Hon Lord Goldsmith at the launch of the Forest Positive Coalition in September during a virtual panel discussion at Climate Week NYC, where he provided insight on the role of governments, as well as continued collaborative action, in creating a forest positive future.
The Forest Positive Coalition thanks the Rt Hon Lord Goldsmith, Lord Callahan and the UK Government for this recognition, and looks forward to continuing to collaborate with them in the future on this important initiative. The CGF’s Managing Director, Wai-Chan Chan, has also written to the Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, Minister for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Glasgow in autumn 2021, to thank him for this recognition and to extend the CGF’s support of his work in preparing for COP 26 later this year.
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.
