Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Deferred
Phased introduction of forest-risk commodities lacks urgency and excludes key supply chain items.
Conclusion
A phased introduction of forest risk commodities misses the opportunity to set early and clear expectations that deforestation is not welcome in any UK supply chains. While the Government’s announcement that four major commodities will be brought within initial scope of the Schedule 17 regime is welcome, the failure to include commodities such as maize, rubber and coffee within this scope does not demonstrate the level of urgency required to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. (Paragraph 81) The UK’s contribution to tackling global deforestation 49
Government response summary AI-generated
The government affirmed its commitment to upholding high environmental standards in trade agreements, its ambition to protect the environment, and its involvement in international initiatives like the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration and the FACT Dialogue, but did not address the recommendation to include more forest-risk commodities in Schedule 17 without a phased approach.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
As part of our consultation in 2021–22 we asked respondents for their views concerning the number of forest risk commodities that should initially be included in due diligence legislation. Campaign responses from Greenpeace and Global Witness advocated for the introduction of 5 – 7 commodities within 12 months of the secondary legislation. However, the majority of non-campaign responses (including businesses, industry associations, NGOs, and private individuals) thought that between 2 – 4 commodities should be included in initial legislation. These respondents preferred that the government prioritise those commodities with the largest environmental impact if it meant that the regulations could come into force more quickly. Furthermore, respondents thought that lessons from the first tranche of commodities could inform the implementation of the regulations for future tranches. We decided to include four commodities initially in secondary legislation based on the consultation feedback, an assessment of each commodity’s role in global deforestation, the UK’s contribution to that deforestation, and the UK’s ability to effectively regulate that commodity. We believe that this approach will enable efforts to eliminate the UK’s deforestation footprint to be focused initially on those commodities responsible for driving the most deforestation. We calculated that an estimated 64% of the UK’s tropical deforestation footprint is driven by the consumption of cattle, cocoa, palm oil and soy using data from the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator3,4. The estimated 5-year average (2014– 2018) of deforestation associated with UK consumption for each of those commodities was totalled (equalling c23,000 hectares per annum) and then divided by the estimated total deforestation risk of UK consumption over that period (c36,000 hectares per annum), with those four commodities therefore accounting for 64% of the UK tropical deforestation footprint. Measurement of this indicator was revised in late 2023, including the addition of data up to 2021, expansion of the data set to include non-tropical forests and significant wider methodological improvements. All previously reported environmental impact estimates have been updated and revised in the dataset to align with these changes and ensure consistency across the time series. Using this new data, the revised estimated proportion of UK linked deforestation (both tropical and non-tropical) caused by its consumption of the four commodities was 52% in 2021 (c15,000 hectares from a total UK deforestation footprint of c28,000 hectares). A further 22% of the UK’s estimated footprint is caused by consumption of timber and timber products, which is regulated separately by the UK Timber Regulations. No other commodity is estimated to account for more than 4% of total UK deforestation footprint in 2021.
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