SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

The world is off track to meet 2025 and 2030 forest goals, with commodity-driven deforestation increasing by 5.6% in 2022. While some leading agricultural companies and governments (notably the EU) are taking action, overall impact is limited by low political priority, insufficient corporate transparency in extractives, and systemic risks to environmental defenders.

• The world is not on track to eliminate commodity-driven deforestation by 2025 or 2030, with 4.77 million hectares of forests permanently destroyed for commodity production in 2022, representing a 5.6% increase over 2021.
• Forestry is the largest driver of tree cover loss, causing 6.7 million hectares of temporary loss in 2022; however, practices such as clear-cutting in primary forests lead to significant degradation, particularly in boreal and temperate regions like Northern Europe and Canada.
• Mining and extractive industries have a significant indirect impact on forests, with up to one-third of the world's forests potentially affected by the cumulative impacts of mine sites.
• Governments generally give forests low priority in macroeconomic planning, as evidenced by the trillions of dollars invested in the Belt and Road Initiative compared to roughly USD 1.3 billion per year in global public investments for forest goals.
• The European Union's Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR) is a major milestone for sustainable supply chains, though its definition of 'degradation' is narrow, excluding unsustainable timber harvesting and clear-cutting followed by natural regeneration.
• Corporate progress in agricultural supply chains is slow; only 29% of companies assessed by Forest 500 have a deforestation commitment for all commodities to which they are exposed, and only 12% of companies disclosing to CDP claim to be close to eradicating deforestation.
• Corporate transparency in the mining and extractives sector remains very limited, with few companies adopting the mitigation hierarchy approach (less than one-third of reporting companies).
• Indigenous Peoples and local communities have increased their international influence and advocacy, but face severe risks; 177 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2022, with agribusiness and extractives being the deadliest sectors.
• Collaborative jurisdictional and landscape initiatives are emerging, with at least 80 multistakeholder initiatives established, but many are in early stages and their direct impact on reducing deforestation is difficult to attribute.
• The Amazon Soy Moratorium is cited as one of the most successful market-based conservation initiatives, avoiding an estimated 0.9% of global deforestation from 2011-16, although some deforestation 'leaked' to other biomes like the Cerrado.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (n.d.). SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023Theme2_low-res.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT. n.d. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023Theme2_low-res.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023Theme2_low-res.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessmentndsustainable, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION \& DEVELOPMENT}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023Theme2_low-res.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }