Climate
The agricultural sector, as a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, plays a crucial role in mitigation and adaptation efforts in the face of climate change. Our work in climate supports companies in defining and meeting their Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) targets and commodity scope, feeds into their carbon accounting and ensures that their implementation strategy is aligned with our Agricultural Commodity Responsible Sourcing (ACRES) approach, which engaging beyond supply chains is an integral part of.
Now more than ever, our clients are working to meet their net-zero and deforestation and conversion free (DCF) commitments, engaging in landscape and jurisdictional initiatives, and implementing regenerative agricultural practices that foster soil health, nutrient retention, and overall ecosystem resilience.
On this page we share some of our thinking and latest resources on the interface between our work and climate change. We are a member of the International Platform for Insetting (IPI), the Value Change Initiative (VCI), and have joined the technical working group of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. We are looking forward to contributing to the future of insetting and drive down value chain emissions by defining best practices and meet climate targets.
The figure above illustrates this interface between FLAG targets and Proforest work on DCF, regenerative agriculture, and landscape initiatives.
- The DCF status of a volume can result in lower Land Use Change (LUC) emissions embedded than conventional volumes. Following Proforest’s generic VDCF methodology, pathways that could support lower LUC emissions include certification schemes, risk-based approaches, remote sensing, farm assessments, and supplier programs.
- Regenerative agricultural practices can result in lower emissions as well as enhance removals at the farm level by using fewer resources and more sustainable land management approaches. Examples include reducing the use of fertilisers that release nitrous oxide and implementing no-tillage practices to increase soil organic carbon storage. Similarly, soil amendments like biochar and crop residue integration can increase carbon removals.
- Landscape and jurisdictional initiatives can include a wide range of FLAG interventions, including conservation activities, regenerative agriculture, and restoration of native vegetation, which can result in LUC and LM emission reductions or removals through carbon sequestration into the soil and biomass. Several interventions, especially in smallholder contexts, might require a landscape approach to be effective.
- Lastly, by improving traceability in countries, jurisdictions, and sourcing regions with high emissions, a company will be able to prioritise where to implement interventions and enable for their emissions calculation to reflect the ongoing emission reductions from these interventions accurately.
Proforest's Principles for Action
Proforest applies three guiding principles to all of our work – questions we ask ourselves about any approach to ensure we are working towards positive impacts. We have applied these within the climate space to guide our thinking. We launched a Call for Grounded Engagement in collaboration with Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, IETA, the International Platform for Insetting, Proforest, The Nature Conservancy, Value Change Initiative and World Business Council for Sustainable Development:
- We believe in driving transformation of the FLAG sector – rather than simply shifting supply chains to meet climate goals, companies should invest in real and sustained action within and beyond their supply chains
- We aim to ensure a just transition in the context of a changing climate – companies should partner with smallholder and disadvantaged producers to transform their supply chains, not exclude them due to carbon accounting challenges.
- We seek to maximise impact with efficient use of financial resources – companies should pragmatically leverage frameworks to resource interventions and strategies with a proven positive impact on the ground and avoid disproportionate investments into MRV, data and supply chain management.
We believe strongly that we need to change companies’ narrative away from “How do I reach my climate targets?” to “How do I leverage my climate targets to drive positive impact on the ground?” A focus on regenerative agriculture, preventing further deforestation and conversion, and seeking positive change through landscape level approaches offers a way to drive positive impacts. And while we seek to mitigate climate emissions for the future, we also now need to think about adapting to the present now.
Aligning DCF and corporate climate targets
Our thinking has gone into the development of practical pathways towards Deforestation and Conversion-Free (DCF) commodity production. For over a decade, we have supported global best practices in this space, and provided operational support to companies at all stages of the supply chain, ranging from small producers to many of the largest retailers and manufacturers. Based on existing guidance, we developed a briefing that features our latest insights and recommendations to ensure companies develop strategies that deliver both climate outcomes and DCF supply chains: Aligning efforts to report and act on land use change emissions and commodity-driven deforestation and conversion.
Due to limited traceability and lack of individual company leverage in many commodity supply chains, we prioritise supply-shed, landscape and jurisdictional approaches as a way to overcome not just the lack of data but also other specific challenges to scale up emission reductions or removals through collective action. We apply our extensive on-the-ground experience to sourcing region interventions and traceability requirements towards meeting FLAG targets.
Landscape action beyond supply chains
Based on our experience working globally on ecosystem conversion and deforestation, transformation in the FLAG sector can only happen if companies take responsibility for supporting and driving change where they are currently sourcing from. Only as a last recourse, should the relocation of supply chains away from challenging production areas happen.
We work with companies to develop and implement interventions in the production landscapes where they source, on the ‘deforestation border’ of their primary commodities, or in their potential future supply chains. We are an implementing partner in several supply-shed and landscape initiatives, and have a catalytic role in the CGF Forest Positive Coalition, which requires companies to set KPIs for landscape investment and engagement. While conservation of forest and ecosystems is often the primary goal of these landscape investments, the question of GHG credits, claims and reporting remains an important challenge. Therefore, we have collaborated with our thinking on a joint position paper on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) in the FLAG sector, Incentivising Corporate Action at Landscape and Jurisdictional Scale, where we argue that BVCM should incentivise and accelerate corporate action and finance for climate change mitigation at scale in the places where it is needed the most.
Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS)
From our foundation, we have been closely involved in the development and implementation of credible voluntary sustainability standards and certification systems in several commodity sectors. We currently provide a range of support functions for certification systems and their users, including benchmarking against reporting and regulatory frameworks. We have actively contributed our thinking in conversations on traceability requirements in agricultural commodity supply chains, within the context of EUDR compliance, as well as GHG accounting, more specifically the rules being set out for accounting for certified commodity volumes. We are highly committed to contribute to discussions on this topic based on our longstanding relationships with major actors in this space including ISEAL, Bonsucro, RTRS, and RSPO.
