Press Release: Embargoed until November 16, 2016, 13:00 GMT
Marrakesh, Morocco, November 16, 2016
The California-based Earth Innovation Institute unveiled the first global exchange for sourcing sustainable commodities at the Global Landscapes Forum today.
The ‘Produce and Protect Platform’ connects companies and consumers seeking sustainably produced commodities with tropical forest jurisdictions where commodities are sustainably produced. It also lets these same jurisdictions show the world the progress they are making.
With global awareness of the need to conserve tropical forests on the rise, international companies purchasing agricultural commodities from those regions face a significant challenge in ensuring the sustainability of their supply chains.
While many companies have made bold pledges to ensure their products are deforestation-free, these pledges typically determine sustainability at the mill or farm level, discouraging deforestation on supplier farms but doing little to protect forests around them. The pledges are also usually made with little or no consultation with their suppliers.
The Produce and Protect Platform highlights a more collaborative approach to sustainable sourcing, in which buyers of commodities partner with entire jurisdictions (a state, province or district) where the government and producers, both industrial and smallholder, have agreed to a shared set of sustainability targets and the best way to achieve those targets.
Through this “jurisdictional” approach, companies can scale-up their supplies of sustainable commodities across entire states, provinces, districts and other political geographies as they scale up the positive impact of their sustainable sourcing commitments.
“We believe that the Produce and Protect Platform will help foster a ‘race to the top’, in which the governments, businesses, farm sectors and civil society in tropical forest states, provinces and other jurisdictions strive to tackle deforestation so that they can better attract corporate partnerships and, eventually, greater financial investment,” said Earth Innovation Institute Executive Director, Daniel Nepstad.
Earth Innovation Institute has created the Produce and Protect platform in partnership with Institut Penelitian Inovasi Bumi (INOBU) and the Forests, Farms and Finance Initiative (3FI). Funding for the development of the platform has been provided by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, The Nature Conservancy and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
The Produce and Protect Platform will be released to users in the first quarter of 2017. A beta version of the platform can be viewed at http://produceprotectplatform.com.
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Earth Innovation Institute advances sustainable development by promoting innovative approaches to farming, forestry and fisheries in tropical regions around the world.
Morgan Lance, Communications Director, Earth Innovation Institute
415-497-8036 or mlance@earthinnovation.org
