GENEVEA, SWITZERLAND — In a commitment to achieve sustainability, members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) Soft Commodities Forum (SCF) released their first public reports on soy sourced from Brazil’s Cerrado region.
In February, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, COFCO International, Glencore Agriculture and Louis Dreyfus Company, (LDC) committed to a common framework for reporting and monitoring progress on transparent and traceable supply chains for soy in Cerrado. Each company issued individual reports.
“These reports mark an important continued step toward transparent and traceable soy supply chains in Brazil,” said Diane Holdorf, managing director of WBCSD. “This is the first time leading global commodity traders are working together in the soy sector on a pre-competitive project to address sustainability risks they all share, but which no single company can resolve alone. Unprecedented collaboration such as this, together with other stakeholders, is required to address these complex food system challenges.”
The June 2019 reports are identical apart from the percentages of soy sourced from the Cerrado and company examples of their initiatives under way. In the reports, the SCF members state the percentage of soy they source from the Cerrado relative to their total Brazilian volume based on 2018 data. The reports include the percentage of soy within the Cerrado that is sourced directly from farmers and indirectly from aggregators, cooperatives and other third parties from 25 priority municipalities.
According to the WBCSD, The Cerrado region of Brazil plays a significant role globally for both people and nature, in terms of climate change mitigation, biodiversity and freshwater systems.
“It is also an economic engine for local communities and a key production region for exported agricultural commodities,” the WBCSD said. “Yet the extent and pace of native vegetation loss resulting from cattle and soy farming expansion in the Cerrado poses a significant threat to these environmental, social and economic values.”
The goal of the ongoing reporting is to identify where interventions are needed to address native vegetation for soy cultivation in Cerrado. To accomplish sustainability, SCF members will engage with local partners and work on more sustainable practices.
“We welcome the leadership taken by our members in contributing to the much-needed transformation of global food systems,” Holdorf said. “This is part of our work at WBCSD to help ensure we are able to provide healthy, nutritious food and supply goods from agricultural production to a population of over nine billion by 2050, while sustaining and regenerating ecosystems and natural resources.”
The reports were produced with the assistance of the SCF’s technical partner, Proforest, and with information provided by Grupo de Trabalho do Cerrado (GTC), also known as the Cerrado Working Group.
The Soft Commodities Forum (SCF) is a global platform for leading soft commodities companies, convened by the WBCSD for the purpose of advancing collective action around common sustainability challenges. The SCF is made up of WBCSD member companies. The WBCSD describes itself as “a CEO-led organization of forward-thinking companies that galvanizes the global business community to create a sustainable future for business, society and the environment.”
For more information on the SCF member company reports click the links below.
