WEF To Launch Tropical Forest Alliance In China
The World Economic Forum announced this week that it will launch a branch of the Tropical Forest Alliance in China. The Alliance is an initiative led by the Forum that aims to remove deforestation from commodity supply chains.
At its Annual Meeting of the New Champions, the Forum also kicked off its latest collaboration with China’s Ministry of Ecology and the Environment (MEE) in support of the 2020 Biodiversity Conference of Parties (COP) in Kunming, China, with a high-level gathering of governments and businesses to start lifting the ambition for the COP and driving business and broader societal action. The event is part of a wide-ranging memorandum of understanding that was signed at the Forum’s Annual Meeting 2017 in Davos between the Forum and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a high-level advisory body to the Chinese government administered by the MEE.
“The Tropical Forest Alliance is a neutral global public-private platform that brings together more than 150 consumer goods companies, governments, civil society organizations, indigenous peoples, and other environmental actors who seek to reduce tropical deforestation linked to commodity supply chains. China could potentially reduce its environmental footprint of commodity sourcing by 55% versus a business as usual scenario in 2025.
“We are thrilled to support Chinese companies and the government to strengthen President Xi Jinping’s vision of ecological civilization within global soft-commodity supply chains,” said Justin Adams, Executive Director of the Tropical Forest Alliance.
The Annual Meeting of the New Champions saw progress in a number of other areas related to global public goods. With biodiversity loss now occurring at mass-extinction rates – the population of vertebrate species declined by an estimated 58% between 1970 and 2012 – a diverse group of influential international organizations including the World Economic Forum has announced a global coalition to elevate the business call for comprehensive action to reverse nature loss and restore the planet’s vital natural systems. Business for Nature was launched the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.
The Forum will continue to support Chinese companies and the government in the run-up to the COP after finalizing a work plan with the MEE. The aim is to raise ambition levels for the COP across business and society. Starting with a gathering of high-level leaders this week at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, activities will ramp up ahead of the event with the formation of an alliance of supporting businesses, as well as the publication by the Forum and partners of a landmark report on TheNew Nature Economy. This report will identify a commercial imperative – to complement the environmental and societal need – to conserve our natural world.
In separate moves, the Annual Meeting of the New Champions saw the first advisory meeting to provide strategic direction to the 28 financial institutions that have signed up to a set of Green Investment Principles. The principles, drafted by a coalition including the Forum, the Green Finance Committee of China, the Society for Finance and Banking and the Green Finance Initiative of the City of London, aim to serve as a voluntary standard for investment into the Belt and Road Initiative.
To further support the sustainability measures of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Forum also joined the Green Belt and Road Coalition. The move will the see the Forum working with MEE on a number of thematic partnerships: Environmental Information Sharing and Big Data; Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management; Green Finance and Investment; and Green Technology Innovation.