Company Landscape Engagement for Cocoa Sustainability: Progress and the Path Forward

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.

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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.