21 companies have written to the UK government over proposals that will ban large businesses in UK from selling beef, soy and other key commodities sourced from illegally deforested land.

Signatories include McDonald’s Corp., Tesco Plc, Nestle SA, Asda, J Sainsbury Plc, and Mondelez International Inc. The companies wrote that the proposed legislation doesn’t go far enough.

This letter is a response to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ due diligence on the government’s proposed legislation to ensure that the supply chains for big companies comply with local environmental law. Under the proposed legislation, large companies would have to report on how they source tropical commodities. The companies would also be banned from using products that are harvested illegally in their country of origin. Deforestation accounts for 11% of greenhouse gases, and the vast majority of it is caused by the production of agricultural commodities, Defra said. In some countries, as much of 90% of forests are cut down illegally.

The companies wrote the law should apply to all businesses, including small firms which may import considerable amounts of products, such as rubber from sensitive forest regions, and not just to large businesses with a turnover and employee numbers over a certain threshold. They also write that the law needs to apply to all deforestation, not just where it has been defined as illegal in individual countries. That puts them in line with environmental groups such as Greenpeace, which has argued that the proposals are seriously flawed, because local laws can be too weak, particularly in Brazil. Ninety-nine per cent of all of the deforestation that took placed in Brazil in 2019 was likely to be illegal, according to a recent report from environmental research group, Mapbiomas.

by Swarnim Agrahari

Anti-Deforestation pledge to UK Government