What are we trying to achieve?
Agricultural and forest commodities such as soy, sugar, palm oil, timber, pulp and paper, beef, rubber, cocoa and coconut are essential in providing the food, feed and fibre needed for a growing global population.
Proforest believes that agricultural commodity production can and should deliver positive outcomes in the places where commodities are produced. We highlight eight environmental and social outcomes that provide the direction for all our work.
These include respecting human rights, advancing gender equality, climate change resilience, protecting and restoring forests and natural ecosystems, conserving biodiversity and securing local development.
By supporting companies and others to implement their environmental and social commitments, Proforest helps to transform sectors and contributes towards several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We have developed three principles which guide our thinking on approaches to take across all our work
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The need to contribute to the transformation of agriculture and forestry sectors to more sustainable practices
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The need to support a just transition
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The need to ensure the best use of resources, which are always finite
Explore how each of our positive outcomes aligns to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by clicking on the images below:
Conserve biodiversity
Climate change mitigation & resilience
Protect and restore forest and natural ecosystems
Secure local livelihoods & development
Maintain and strengthen ecosystem services
Respect indigenous peoples and local communities
Advance gender equality
Respect workers' rights
What guides our work?
We support companies, governments and civil society to make the transition to better production practices. We believe that collaboration between companies and with other stakeholders is essential to deliver real change on the ground. We support that change by developing and sharing knowledge and capacity, with tools, guidance and training.
Our work is always guided by the impact on the ground.
- Local ownership and local benefits
We work to ensure that the tools and approaches we develop and use and the initiatives we support actively contribute to creating local ownership and benefits. This includes giving voice to local communities and respecting local structures and leadership. Contributing to this, we are building our local teams in production regions, with experts in commodities and practice areas who understand the local, national and regional context on the ground. -
Social and environmental outcomes are important for a Forest Positive future
We work on a shared belief that success means recognising the interdependence of environmental and social outcomes, reflected in the shift in narrative from “Deforestation-free" to “Forest Positive”. -
Collaboration is key
Internally and externally, Proforest seeks to collaborate, share and learn with others. Internally that means sharing knowledge and tools across regions, across commodities and emerging trends. Externally, we seek to provide both thought leadership and practical support to collaboration initiatives, including company collaboration, multi-stakeholder sectoral or issue-based initiatives, VSS initiatives and regulatory changes.