Search Climate Insights Directory

This research paper by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines how European companies manage the trade-offs between sustainability, competitiveness, and geopolitical risk within critical raw material (CRM) supply chains, highlighting the gap between policy goals and practical implementation.

The Stakeholder Toolkit, updated in March 2023 by the Forest Declaration Assessment, provides a curated directory of frameworks, standards, and organizations designed to help stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain, mining, and infrastructure sectors align their operations with forest-positive goals and sustainability standards.

This technical annex assesses progress toward the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) Goal 2, which aims to eliminate deforestation from agricultural commodity production (palm oil, soy, paper, and beef) by 2020. The report finds that current efforts by governments and companies are insufficient to meet this target, noting a stagnation in new corporate commitments and significant gaps in reporting, transparency, and the inclusion of indirect suppliers.

The 2016 Goal 2 Assessment Report evaluates progress toward eliminating deforestation from agricultural commodity supply chains, specifically palm oil, soy, cattle, and wood products. While corporate pledges are increasing, the report finds a significant gap between high-level commitments and operational implementation, particularly in the cattle and soy sectors. It emphasizes that while downstream companies in Europe and North America lead in pledging, the most critical impact comes from upstream producers in deforestation hotspots like Brazil and Indonesia. The report concludes that global data linking these corporate efforts to actual reductions in deforestation is currently unavailable.

The report 'The State of Sustainable Markets: Statistics and Emerging Trends 2015' provides a comprehensive data snapshot of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) across nine commodity sectors: bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm oil, soybeans, cane sugar, tea, and forestry. Produced by the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the document tracks growth in certified areas and production volumes, highlighting the rapid expansion of sustainable markets and the challenges of data consistency and multiple certification.

This briefing introduces Transformative Transparency, an online information and decision-support platform developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Global Canopy Programme (GCP). The platform aims to increase sustainability in agricultural supply chains by using production, trade, and customs data to map the flow of commodities from production landscapes to consumer countries, identifying the actors and risks involved.

The New York Declaration on Forests Action Agenda (2014) outlines a comprehensive framework for governments, companies, indigenous peoples, and multilateral institutions to slow, halt, and reverse global forest loss. It details a 'menu of key actions' for various stakeholders and reports a surge in zero-deforestation commitments from global commodity traders and consumer goods companies, alongside national pledges for forest restoration and the protection of indigenous lands.

This synthesis report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development proposes a commodity-by-commodity framework to assess sustainability risks and vulnerabilities for importers, specifically focusing on China's global resource needs. The report argues that China's reliance on inward supply chains exposes it to systemic risks—including natural hazards, local conflict, and resource nationalism—which are currently managed in a tactical rather than strategic manner.

This report describes the methodology for the IISD Supply Risk Tool, designed to help Chinese companies and policymakers assess and manage sustainability risks within global inbound supply chains to ensure security of supply.

This report analyzes the environmental and social impacts of China's role as a leading producer, importer, and exporter in the global cotton and textile supply chain. It examines the trade-offs between economic growth and environmental degradation, proposing a transition toward sustainable production practices and a strategic shift in sourcing toward rain-fed regions in Africa to reduce global environmental pressure.

This 2008 report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) analyzes global forest product commodity chains with China as the central manufacturing hub. It examines how China imports primary raw materials from developing nations—specifically focusing on case studies in Mozambique and Russia—and exports finished wood products to developed Western markets. The report identifies a systemic failure in sustainability where capital from timber sales often fails to return to forest regeneration, leading to asset-stripping and illegal logging, exacerbated by poor governance in supplier countries and irresponsible corporate behavior. It provides a series of policy recommendations for the Chinese government to transition toward sustainable procurement, capacity-building in supplier nations, and international leadership in carbon accounting and legality verification.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has launched the Initiative on Producer to Consumer Sustainability (P2CS), a platform designed to improve the sustainability of international trade by analyzing production-to-consumption systems (PCSs). The initiative combines innovative supply chain modelling with multidisciplinary governance analysis to increase transparency and identify opportunities for sustainable trade practices.

This research paper describes the methodology behind two data products developed by the World Resources Institute, the World Cocoa Foundation, and Climate Focus to address deforestation in the cocoa sectors of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana: the West Africa Cocoa Dataset and the Cocoa Deforestation Risk Assessment.

This report by the World Resources Institute analyzes the availability of verifiable lower-emissions beef in the U.S. and Europe, providing guidance for food buyers in the hospitality and catering sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while balancing animal welfare and sustainability goals.