Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 24
Monitoring and transparent data reporting are crucial for understanding and reducing deforestation impacts.
Conclusion
Understanding which forest risk commodities are contributing to deforestation, and on what scale, is essential for the UK and other nations to introduce effective legislation and policies. Monitoring and transparent data reporting are therefore crucial, including on how consumption contributes to deforestation. These are very complex undertakings, requiring global cooperation at the national government level and within the private sector. Complete and transparent data availability is essential for companies and the financial sector to be able to understand, and to reduce, exposure to deforestation in their supply chains or portfolios.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the importance of monitoring and transparent data reporting and states that scoping work is underway to assess the feasibility of incorporating metals and minerals into the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator framework.
Paragraph Reference:
24
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The government has been actively developing an approach to monitor the impact of UK consumption on the global environment (see responses to recommendations 1 and 2). We agree with the recommendation and have recently undertaken scoping work to assess the feasibility of incorporating the environmental impacts of metals and mineral products into the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator framework. While this work remains in its early stages, our initial assessment indicates that it may be feasible to incorporate the environmental impacts of metals and minerals into the modelling framework. Work is underway to develop the trade modelling underpinning the addition of metals and minerals, which is the first step towards being able to incorporate environmental impacts.