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Industry Leaders Join Forces to Launch Guidance on Deforestation and Land-Use Change

What happens when you unite General Mills, LVMH, Mars, Rainforest Alliance and TSC and more with the experts at Quantis? You drive sustainable change.

Published 8 years ago | About a 2 minute read

What happens when you unite General Mills, LVMH, Mars, Rainforest Alliance and TSC and more with the experts at Quantis? You drive sustainable change.

Quantis and partners have recently announced a new cross-sector initiative to tackle deforestation and climate change accounts. Organizations, both public and private, have joined together to develop a Guidance on accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and other types of land use. This pre-competitive global initiative, convened by Quantis, aims to provide a methodological guide with credible references that companies can use to account for the climate change impacts of their efforts on sustainable forests and agriculture in an accurate and credible manner.

The initiatives partners already include Barry Callebaut, Ferrero, General Mills, Lenzing, L’Oreal, LVMH, Mars, Pirelli, Philip Morris International, Tetra Pak, and Yara as well as non-profits, governments, and academic institutions such as ADEME, C-AGG, CIRAD, Ecofys, Rainforest Alliance, South Pole Group, Textile Exchange, The Sustainability Consortium. The initiative is still open to new partners like Ecoact, who joined this month.

Quantis’ Jon Dettling, Managing Director in the US and project lead, explains:

“Companies understand the need to reduce the impacts of their supply chains and are increasingly interested in communicating about their efforts. Credible metrics are critical for achieving both. A GHG accounting method that is conducive to corporate goal setting and supply chain management will allow companies to achieve progress and to communicate credibly on these efforts.”

The scientific community estimates that deforestation and impacts from land use account for over 20% of GHG emissions. With pressure to set science-based GHG targets as well as to establish deforestation-free supply chains, organizations realize the urgent need for guidance on how to include GHG emissions from deforestation in corporate GHG goals.

“Mars is excited to be part of this initiative - we believe better and more consistent quantification of GHG emissions from deforestation will help accelerate global efforts to reduce both deforestation and GHG emissions, “ says Kevin Rabinovitch, Global Sustainability Director, Mars, Incorporated.

Read more about the Guidance initiative’s objectives and partners in the initial press release or contact Jon Dettling at [email protected].