Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
Paragraph: 23
Commence setting a UK environmental footprint target to reduce global environmental impact and deforestation.
Recommendation
We reiterate the recommendation we made in our September 2021 report on The UK’s footprint on global biodiversity, which reflects that of the Global Resource Initiative Taskforce, that the UK Government should commence the process of setting an environmental footprint target with the aim of reducing the UK’s global environmental impact, including its deforestation footprint.
Government Response Summary
The government describes its existing Forest Risk Commodities scheme, support for the UK Soy Manifesto, the UK Sustainable Commodities Initiative (UK SCI), and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) as initiatives already in place or coming into force to promote transparency and reduce deforestation impacts. It does not commit to setting a new overarching environmental footprint target.
Paragraph Reference:
23
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The UK recognises that data disclosure plays a crucial role in supporting global efforts to protect forests and other ecosystems and is committed to promoting greater transparency including in the following ways. The UK’s Forest Risk Commodities scheme will necessitate the sharing of data between organisations domestically and internationally regarding the sourcing of commodities. Organisations in scope will need to submit an annual report regarding their due diligence systems, which will be published to ensure transparency. The UK also supports the UK Soy Manifesto, a collective industry commitment to ensuring all physical shipments of soy to the UK are deforestation and conversion free no later than the end of 2025. Individual signatories report their annual progress on this commitment via a publicly available progress tracker, strengthening industry efforts and leadership to increase transparency along soy supply chains. The UK, as COP26 Presidents, launched the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue in February 2021, which brings together 28 major producer and consumer countries of internationally traded agricultural commodities to collectively agree actions to protect forests and other critical ecosystems, while promoting sustainable trade and development. Through FACT, the UK has supported discussions and research on Traceability & Transparency, building understanding of the role of data quality and accessibility as a driver of improved natural resource management and forest protection, including the need for consistent data collection and reporting across sectors and for data gathering costs to be equitably shared among supply chain actors. The UK and US governments, alongside the Tropical Forest Alliance, have convened 14 of the world’s largest agricultural commodity trading and processing companies to deliver on the commitments set out in the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5C launched at COP27. A required component of company commodity implementation plans under the Roadmap is the specification of an approach to supply chain mapping and traceability, demonstrating a robust approach to monitoring and reporting on the origins of materials to a sufficient extent to determine compliance. The UK Sustainable Commodities Initiative (UK SCI) is another key initiative, funded by the UK government, which brings together over 60 domestic businesses (and civil society actors) with soy and palm oil supply chains to provide technical assistance on implementing their deforestation and conversion free policies and build more resilient, transparent, and sustainable commodity supply chains. The UK has supported the development of tools and frameworks, such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), to drive transparency among market participants and generate decision-grade data in relation to nature. The aim of the global, market-led TNFD is to facilitate the alignment of global financial flows in nature positive directions, by generating this decision-grade nature related data. The TNFD has forestry- specific guidance on risk management and disclosures and so will empower institutions in this sector to provide relevant disclosures to the broader investment community.