Deforestation remains a major source of emissions, despite years of commitments. The pressing question today is whether businesses can adequately trace and control their supply chains before regulation and risk catch up with them.
International Day of Forests on 21 March serves as a reminder that protecting forests remains central to tackling climate change and that our efforts must go further, as we cannot survive without them. Trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, while clearing them releases it back into the atmosphere. Today, deforestation still accounts for roughly 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Businesses have a critical role to play. The question is how companies can ensure that their operations and supply chains do not contribute to deforestation.
Here are six steps to get started:
The starting point is to measure your deforestation impacts and identify your main risks, both across direct operations and wider supply chains. The commodities most linked to deforestation are beef, soy (80% of which is used as fodder for farmed animals), palm oil and wood products (including paper and cardboard). Cocoa, coffee and rubber follow behind. The sheer number of small farms around the world makes it very difficult to know if a specific product is tied to deforestation, so mapping out your firm’s use of such commodities can be a complex business. However, help is at hand.
The Accountability Framework is a roadmap for companies to set goals, take action and report on progress towards addressing deforestation. Meantime, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development–in partnership with the UN’s FAO–offers a free business handbook on deforestation and supply chain due diligence.
Companies should not just avoid links to deforestation but also the destruction of any wild landscape for farming. For example, the Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna that covers over 20% of Brazil. Known as the ‘upside down forest’, it has complex root systems that lock vast volumes of carbon into the ground. At present, cattle ranchers and soy producers are rapidly destroying it, with their conversion of native vegetation to pasture or mono-cropped fields producing roughly 230 million metric tons of carbon annually, equivalent to the yearly emissions of 50 million cars.
Businesses consequently need to ensure that they are not linked to any form of ecosystem conversion. Although data in this area has historically been limited, the Accountability Framework Initiative is currently conducting research to highlight global hotspots of agricultural expansion into non-forest ecosystems. In addition to Brazil’s Cerrado, other critical areas include Australia’s grasslands and savannahs, the Great Plains of North America, and South America’s Pampas Plain.
Companies should map out their supply chains: moving from top-tier suppliers down to each farm or smallholding. Then they can gather GPS coordinates of the plots of land where their high-risk commodities are being cultivated and use satellite data and imagery to track any deforestation or land conversion. This can be done with data supplied by the free online platform Global Forest Watch or in partnership with one of the new breed of satellite-data sustainability supply-chain specialists, such as Satelligence.
Companies can subsequently put together a risk assessment by analyzing satellite data alongside other key risk factors. These can include local governance regarding land conversion, the proximity of growing areas to protected landscapes, overall regional deforestation levels, the presence of Indigenous peoples, and country-level risks.
The next step is to update your procurement policy to ensure your company does not purchase products linked to deforestation or land conversion. This will include an updated supplier code of conduct to formally incorporate ‘no deforestation’ and ‘no land conversion’ requirements into supplier contracts. It might also require suppliers to have a specific certification for certain commodities–such as the ones from the Round Table on Responsible Soy or the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
It’s important to set clear cut-off dates, communicate the new policy to all audiences and engage directly with your suppliers by offering training and technical support to help them comply with your new standards. Specialist sustainability communications expertise can be extremely helpful in this regard, ensuring that the right messages are sent along the right channels.
Moreover, certifications exist for specific commodities, as referenced in step four regarding soy and palm oil. However, beef certification remains the biggest challenge, given that cattle ranching accounts for 70% of Amazon Rainforest destruction. Until recently, one did not exist. However, in October 2025, Brazil released its voluntary Beef on Track certification, guaranteeing deforestation-free beef, although its success remains to be seen.
Regulation is becoming a reality in Europe. Any company selling or exporting beef, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy, and wood (plus derived products such as furniture, leather, and chocolate) in or from the EU will soon need to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). It requires companies to trace these high-risk products to the exact plots of land that cannot have been deforested after 31 December 2020. Phased in gradually, the EUDR will require large and medium-sized companies to comply from 30 December 2026. In the meantime, micro and small operators have until 30 June 2027.
Deforestation has been a human obsession since we took up farming. Before the Agricultural Revolution, around 10,000 years ago, 57% of our planet’s land was covered in forests. Today, it is only 32%, with most of the loss occurring in the past century.
Even though the felling of trees and the destruction of wild landscapes have slowed in the last decade, the pace of loss remains dangerously high. We must apply the brakes, and that will require a fundamental shift in how forests are viewed.
Trees are not simply commodities to be destroyed for short-term gain. They are the living infrastructure that regulates our climate, protects biodiversity and sustains economies on which we all depend. Companies that recognise this now and take action will be the ones that lead us towards a more resilient future and a sustainable global economy.
Will yours be one of them?
For a deeper look at how sustainability expectations are reshaping business strategy, download our report: Disruption, Doubt, and a New Direction.