Using the Kalomo District, Zambia as a case study, this paper aims to understand the role and influence of private sector actors at landscape scale in the production of four locally important commodities. The study deploys a value chain analysis methodology within the production of maize, tobacco, cattle, and charcoal and analyses the potential role of the private sector in terms of sustainable land use, improving local livelihoods and protecting ecosystems in this particular landscape.

The study stresses that stronger private-sector involvement at landscape scale could help to address funding gaps, create co-funding opportunities, and encourage public-private collaborations. Furthermore, increased engagement of the private sector could also help to green supply chains, avoid land-use conflicts, and protect human rights. Through the value chain analysis, the study has identified three entry points to increase private sector engagement at landscape scale (1) improving water security for smallholders; (2) empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as private sector actors; and (3) collective planning for sustainable landscape activities with deliberate measures to involve private sector actors.

As part of the study, researchers engaged with actors from the government, private sector and farmers through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews to inform its conclusions and recommendations. For more information on the study, please find related impact story from CIFOR here.

This report explores why and how manufacturers, retailers, and traders are using landscape and jurisdictional approaches in cocoa production areas. The most prominent systemic issue companies seek to address using landscape engagement is deforestation from cocoa expansion. Companies engage at this scale to meet their own sustainability commitments, improve sourcing sustainability, build collaboration with other actors and leverage funding from other sources.

As part of the report’s analysis, the study identified 29 companies supporting 20 landscape initiatives in 10 countries, including Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil, and Peru. Recommendations to bring more company action at landscape scale for midstream and downstream companies are:

• Increase investments in cocoa landscape initiatives and collaborations with the public sector; 
• Ensure corporate sustainability programmes contribute to shared goals in cocoa landscapes;
• Involve other global companies; and
• Collaborate cross commodity and within the cocoa sector.

The report also provides specific recommendations for stakeholders interested in promoting landscape engagement in cocoa, as well as other commodities.  

The findings and recommendations in the report are drawn upon data collected through interviews with key cocoa stakeholders, including companies and landscape implementers, as well as through an analysis of company responses to CDP’s forest questionnaire in 2022. This study is a collaboration between the Tropical Forest Alliance, Proforest, and CDP.

This report is part of a global study that aims to understand how midstream and downstream companies have been using landscape and jurisdictional approaches to address commodity-driven deforestation. The study includes five commodity specific reports on cocoa, palm oil, pulp, paper and packaging, beef and soy landscape-scale action as well as a final summary report. The study also delves deeper into other possible uses of these approaches, in a report on meeting corporate climate, nature and people goals.

This operational guidance is intended to support cocoa supply chain companies with the upcoming EU Deforestation Due Diligence (DDD) regulation. The document provides detailed guidance under six steps, that have been developed by Proforest, for companies to follow in their approach to the DDD regulation process. The six steps that Proforest have identified in this DDD process are: information collection, assessment, mitigation, monitoring, remediation and finally reporting.

The guidance document breaks down the six steps, and under each outlines the main requirements from the EU, existing tools and approaches to support compliance as well as flagging any potential implementation challenges and opportunities that might arise under each step. This guidance also highlights throughout how landscape and jurisdictional initiatives can present opportunities to adhere to the DDD regulation. For example, initiatives at this scale can make monitoring in forest landscapes more efficient. Operating at this scale also means actors can share with each other traceability data in a region, rather than duplicating efforts multiple times in the same jurisdiction.

In addition to this operational guidance, Proforest has developed a complementary reference document that provides additional details and supporting information. This can be found here.

This guidance document has been developed to support cocoa companies, but especially importers and producers, in meeting emerging Deforestation Due Diligence (DDD) regulations. The guidance highlights, using existing examples such as the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), that landscape and jurisdictional initiatives are a key tool that can help companies to meet DDD requirements. Initiatives at this scale have or will develop landscape or jurisdictional-level monitoring systems that can feed directly into the DDD reporting, as well as management plans that can act as a mitigation mechanism.

Beyond landscape and jurisdictional level initiatives, more tools and best practice examples are synthesized throughout the guidance that can support companies in meeting DDD regulations. This includes international certification schemes from the Rainforest Alliance and EU Organic, as well as company systems and sustainability programmes such as Mondelēz International’s Cocoa Life programme and Cargill’s Cocoa Promise.

The guidance document also provides an overview of what DDD is, breaks down key terms and components in the process, and how to approach regulation using six steps. From initial information collection through supply chain mapping exercises through to reporting on DDD. This guidance does not focus on a specific DDD regulation but mostly contains references to the EU proposed regulation, as it is the most developed and complete example.

In addition to this reference document, Proforest have developed operational guidance intended for cocoa supply chain companies, focusing on compliance with the DDD regulation proposed by the EU Commission. This can be found here.

This factsheet from CDP provides an overview of what landscape and jurisdictional approaches (LA/JA) are, key differences between the two terms and why these approaches are vital for financial institutions. The factsheet highlights that 211 companies reporting on forests through CDP identified a total of US$79 billion for forests-related risks. Therefore, investing in initiatives that use LA/JA makes good business sense for financial institutions as they can protect habitats and ecosystems at scale, while also protecting assets in relation to supply chains.

Multiple jurisdictional initiatives are highlighted throughout the document to be used as best practice examples. These initiatives include Brazil’s Mato Grosso Protect, Conserve and Include (PCI) project that aims to provide 6 gigatons of CO2 reduction. The factsheet also provides opportunities for financial institutions in terms of financing sustainable landscapes, such as green bonds like the Forest Resilience Bond. As well as other financing mechanisms like the The &Green Fund and the Biosphere Integrity Fund, that is currently in development.

The document is aimed at private-sector financial institutions and stresses these organisations can benefit from adopting LA/JA. If not, they potentially risk failure in meeting their environmental commitments, if landscape-level considerations are not in their investment decisions.

This guidance document outlines how companies should collaborate with other stakeholders in the landscapes and jurisdictions in which they operate to implement their commitments, while also supporting broader positive impacts. The purpose of this collaboration is to address social and environmental issues that are beyond companies’ full control and to contribute to broader and longer-lasting positive impact.

The guidance is broken down into three sections. These are actions that all companies can take, such as the development of a stakeholder engagement plan and engaging in multi-stakeholder planning and policy efforts, as well as additional actions for producers and primary processors and buyers and financiers.

The document also provides specific tools and frameworks that have been developed to assess and support the performance of landscapes and jurisdictions according to environmental, social and governance topics. These include The &Green Fund which invests money, from a variety of donors, in commodity supply chain projects that adhere to environmental and social safeguards.

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) have released their 2022 Annual Report. This report highlights the Facility’s wins from 2021/22, program updates and details of their funds. Including the large-scale jurisdictional forest fund – the Climate Emissions Reduction Facility (CERF) which aims to be fully operational in 2023 and has a short-term capitalisation target of $1 billion.

FCPF’s main win for this period, which the report details, was the issuing of the world’s first independently verified jurisdictional reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) payment to Mozambique. This payment was made to Mozambique as part of the FCPF Carbon Fund. The report then provides full details of the FCPF’s Carbon Fund, a portfolio of 15 diverse emissions reductions programs that take a jurisdictional-level approach to achieving climate-smart land use and protecting forests.  

The report concludes by highlighting issues and challenges the FCPF have identified across countries emission reductions programs. Which include challenges associated to the Covid-19 pandemic, a convoluted financing landscape for countries to navigate, as well as the measurement, reporting and verification of emissions in order to initiate payments. The FCPF also call for greater collaboration between governments, NGOs, CSOs and the private sector in the report, which would unlock new opportunities within voluntary carbon markets.

This paper presents a common definition of what constitutes a landscape or jurisdictional investment or action, to make it clear for companies and others when an action or investment counts towards landscape or jurisdictional outcomes.

The paper then highlights five key characteristics of landscape investment and action, such as shared goals defined with local multi-stakeholder input as well as aims that have impacts beyond individual supply chains. ISEAL’s paper then concludes with what the five key characteristics might look like in practice, with details of what each means for companies, and potential challenges that have been identified that might get in the way of successful implementation.

This paper is the first in a series from the landscape and jurisdictional practitioner community, coordinated by the ISEAL Alliance. The brief is the first in a series to present collective positions of a landscape practitioner community coordinated by ISEAL that includes CDP, CI, Earthworm Foundation, IDH, Proforest, Transitions, TFA, and WWF.

You can find the other position papers in the series at the links below:

• Position 2: Effective Company Claims About Landscape Investments and Actions
• Position 3: Effective Company Claims About Contributions to Landscape Performance Outcomes
• Position 4: Company Responsibilities for Supporting Credible Landscape Monitoring

The Tocache Jurisdicitonal Initiative is a multistakeholder partnership set up with the goal of facilitating the transition towards sustainability in the San Martín Region of Peru. This report describes the inner workings of the initiative, and presents important conclusions, recommendations, and lessons learnt as an example to inspire other landscape implementers in setting up similar initiatives. Recommendations presented in the report include the need to establish financial and non-financial incentives to accelerate action towards landscape level initiatives. As well as the importance, in jurisdictional initiatives, of setting up the space for communication to facilitate public-private governance.

The San Martín Region of Peru is covered in 66% of the Amazon rainforest and forms an important part of the Peruvian agricultural sector. It is the region with the highest growth in gross agricultural value added, with more than USD 189 million over the last twelve years. Ensuring this region can still contribute to Peru’s economy while reducing the levels of deforestation is the initiative’s main aim. The initiative was set up in 2021 by the Tropical Forest Alliance, Earth Innovation Institute, Helvetas, and the Earthworm Foundation who conducted a thorough planning process to lay out their vision. This report provides further details of the planning process which involved the formulation of an action plan, solid governance protocols, and landscape monitoring.

Agriculture and forestry are inherently linked, between 2000 and 2018 almost 90% of deforestation was attributable to agricultural expansion. On top of this, it is projected that by 2050 165 to 600 million more ha of land for crop and livestock production – much of which is covered by forests and critical ecosystems – will be needed to meet the demands of a growing population. Large-scale systemic change is therefore needed to transform global agricultural systems, and this is not achievable without governments.

This report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) pushes for greater public sector involvement from consumer countries to help shape market regulation. The report stresses that governments are key to developing the enabling conditions across sectors and stakeholders for more sustainable agricultural systems. It highlights key actions that governments must adopt to meet the demands of the future. Such as better coordination across countries that produce and consume agricultural commodities associated with forest conversion.

As well as pushing for a greater role from governments, FAO’s report also highlights the role that integrated landscape approaches from jurisdictions can play in addressing the problems with the global food system. It highlights case studies from Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil to provide examples of how jurisdictional approaches can work in reality on the ground.