Supply Chain
Tracking Your Forest Sustainability Efforts Is Now Affordable, Fast, Accurate

Joe Coppolino
Published 5 years ago. About a 4 minute read.
Image: CIFOR (via Flickr)
Sponsored Content / This article is sponsored by One Tree Planted.

The number of companies who have committed to ending deforestation within their supply chains is growing, but progress towards those goals has been slow. With a new application from Global Forest Watch (GFW) set to be released soon, companies will be able to track all their forest-related sustainability efforts in one secure place.

GFW Pro is the latest iteration of the forest and commodity analysis tools from the GFW team, making a company’s commitments to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, deforestation within their supply chain actionable, achievable and reportable.

Companies are committing to ending deforestation

Last year, 57 percent of companies made at least one commitment to protecting the world’s forests. Some companies have even pledged to completely eliminate deforestation from their supply chains by 2020, according to the Forest 500 2018 annual report. (Every year the Forest 500 rates and ranks 500 of the most influential companies involved in forest-risk commodities such as palm oil, cattle, soy and cocoa on their efforts to reduce deforestation).

However, the report also notes few companies are executing what they set out to do, with 70 percent of the most powerful companies not meeting their commitments to counter deforestation.

One Tree Planted and Global Forest Watch are hosting a live webinar about Global Forest Watch Pro on April 9th. Read on or skip the lingo and join the live webinar to learn more from the experts.

One reason for the gap between commitment and implementation is a lack of simple and affordable supply chain monitoring systems. Agricultural supply chains are complex, involving thousands of production areas, making it difficult for actors to measure deforestation risk, set benchmarks or monitor progress.

With this in mind, World Resources Institute (WRI) formed a partnership with more than 60 technology, NGO, public and private sector partners and brought them together with major food producers, traders and retailers, to develop an app that can track, monitor and manage deforestation within a company’s supply chain. GFW Pro is unique in the supply chain-monitoring space.

Here's a preview of the interactive tool:

Global Forest Watch Pro: Real-time supply chain monitoring

WRI first formed Global Forest Watch back in 1997 to produce reports on the world’s forests. As technology advanced and monitoring capabilities improved, GFW eventually launched its global forest mapping platform in 2006, providing users with accurate and up-to-date data on deforestation and its impacts around the globe ever since.

Now, with the launch of GFW Pro, companies have a more secure and collaborative environmental risk management system to help them track, achieve and report their progress on deforestation commitments.

With GFW Pro, companies are able to:

Plot farms, production facilities and municipalities across supply chains worldwide.
Easily track and prioritize environmental risks occurring near suppliers or centers of operation.
Access near-real-time alerts for fires and potential deforestation in the vicinity of their suppliers.
Develop dashboard visualization of data to quickly monitor and assess progress of land-related sustainability efforts.
Gain access to dozens of datasets from the WRI and GFW universe, including the location of palm oil mills, localized tree cover loss in South America and Southeast Asia, mining titles, logging and oil palm concessions, data on deforestation in sensitive areas, and much more.

GFW Pro allows companies large and small to have a powerful tool that makes achieving zero-deforestation simple and transparent. Combining GFW’s trove of data into a secure and manageable platform means companies can make the right decision when it comes to mitigating risk brought on by their supply chains and easily track the progress of their commitments.

Growing need for agricultural commodities makes tech a forest’s friend

Advanced mapping and commodity-tracking technology are fast becoming imperative for companies involved with forest-risk commodities at all points along their supply chain.

A growing global population is spurring a rapid expansion of agricultural production, which in turn is putting the world’s forests at risk as it swallows up land to produce forest-risk commodities. In fact, according to the National Academy of Sciences, 70 percent of deforestation in the tropics comes from agricultural commodities alone.

GFW Pro, along with sustainable land management practices and strong regulations, can help ensure that an increase in agricultural production does not put our forests at any further risk.

For those companies committed to reducing or eliminating deforestation from their supply chains, adopting technology such as GFW Pro means they can secure their investments and improve their sustainability efforts, all while ensuring the Earth’s forests thrive.

Want to learn more about GFW Pro? One Tree Planted will be hosting a webinar on April 9, 2019, in which the Global Forest Watch will present GFW Pro and walk through how it will help companies monitor and reduce deforestation within their supply chains. Click here for more information and to register for the live webinar.

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