Goal 8 assessment

The report finds that international and domestic public finance for forests is significantly lower than the sector's climate mitigation potential. It highlights a gap where 'grey' finance for agriculture far outweighs 'green' finance for forest protection. Additionally, the document notes that most major financial institutions lack deforestation policies, and private investment in sustainable commodity production remains difficult to quantify and insufficient in scale.

• Public finance for forests is disproportionately low compared to its mitigation potential. While the forest sector has the third highest mitigation potential after energy and industry, only USD 20.2 billion in public finance has been committed to deforestation countries since 2010. This represents only 0.4 percent of the estimated USD 5.4 trillion needed to reduce tropical deforestation emissions by nearly a third by 2050.
• There is a significant imbalance between domestic 'grey' finance and 'green' finance in deforestation countries. Domestic financing for activities that may put forests at risk, such as agricultural subsidies, is estimated at USD 135 billion, whereas domestic financing for REDD+ activities is only USD 10.1 billion.
• Multilateral and bilateral climate funds have committed over USD 6.6 billion to REDD+ since 2010, but less than 40% of these funds have been disbursed, with the majority of disbursements occurring in the two years prior to the report.
• The majority of large financial institutions do not have policies to manage deforestation risks. An analysis of 150 institutions providing the most finance to commodity companies revealed that 86 percent have no deforestation policy, and only 14 percent have a no-deforestation policy for all commodities in their portfolios.
• Private investment in sustainable commodity production is difficult to quantify due to a lack of transparency and uniform definitions. Historical data from 2004-2016 showed roughly USD 2.7 billion invested, but current global data is unavailable. However, a group of public-private investment funds currently hold at least USD 683 million in funding capital.
• Corporate implementation of deforestation-free commitments is low. A 2019 assessment of the 350 most influential companies in forest-risk supply chains found that less than half (48 percent) report on the implementation of their pledges, and only 13 percent report on all engaged commodity supply chains.

APA

Galt, H., & Long, I. (2020). Goal 8 assessment. Forest Declaration Assessment. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2020NYDFGoal8.pdf

Chicago

Galt, Hilda, and Imogen Long. Goal 8 assessment. Forest Declaration Assessment, 2020. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2020NYDFGoal8.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Galt |first1=Hilda |last2=Long |first2=Imogen |title=Goal 8 assessment |publisher=Forest Declaration Assessment |date=November 2020 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2020NYDFGoal8.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{galt2020goal, author = {Galt, Hilda and Long, Imogen}, title = {{Goal 8 assessment}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2020}, month = nov, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2020NYDFGoal8.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }