Thousands of companies trumpet tree-planting programs as downpayment toward their carbon emissions debt, yet few are taking adequate steps to address deforestation in their supply chains.

That’s one high-level takeaway from a recent analysis by CDP, the disclosure nonprofit that collects and analyzes corporate emissions and other sustainability data. The organization started collecting deforestation data in 2017, when barely 200 companies completed the questionnaire. Last year, more than 1,000 companies reported their deforestation management practices — including household names Cargill, L’Oreal and Kimberly-Clark.

The biggest mic drop moment? The CDP analysis states that, on average, each reporting company is risking $300 million by failing to address deforestation, while it would take just an average of $17.4 million for each to respond and address practices that reduce tree-cutting activities.

The case for preventing deforestation is clear. Globally, trees extract 7.6 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, the equivalent of the entire U.S. and European Union’s fossil fuel and industry emissions in 2021. Meanwhile, the clearing of forests accounts for between 12 and 20 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions annually.

That narrative is why thousands of companies support tree-planting programs. There's Microsoft’s E-tree program, which plants trees in Kenya. The Trillion Trees Project by 1t.org is driven by pledges from AstraZeneca, Capgemini, Mastercard, Nestle, PepsiCo, Salesforce, SAP, Shell, Suzano, Unilever and UPS — and aims to plant 1 trillion trees globally by 2030. Many other companies are investing in reforestation to reach their net-zero commitments.

But against that backdrop, few companies have developed effective deforestation strategies, according to the CDP analysis. Here are three big indicators of that shortcoming:

  1. Barely any companies map forest-related risks through their entire supply chain
  2. North American companies are behind, even though they are the most exposed
  3. Retail is failing at putting deforestation commitments into practice 

Read the full article about deforestation by Jesse Klein at GreenBiz.