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CDP Forests Questionnaire Preview and Reporting Guidance 2022 - Version Control

Note that you have selected to view the Forests - Full version.

You have selected to view sector-specific content for the following sectors:

• General

You have also selected to view the additional questions requested by CDP Supply Chain members. In the Online Response System, these questions will only be presented to organizations requested to disclose by a customer (i.e. a CDP supply chain member).

CDP disclosure cycle 2022

Accessing questionnaire previews, reporting guidance, and scoring methodologies

CDP’s corporate questionnaire previews, reporting guidance, and scoring methodologies for climate change, forests and water security can be accessed from the guidance for companies page of CDP's website.

Submitting a response to the questionnaire(s)

Responses to questionnaires must be submitted via CDP's Online Response System (ORS), which is part of CDP's online disclosure platform. Please refer to Using CDP's Online Disclosure Platform for more details. Please note that while the questions themselves are the same in the questionnaire preview as they are in the ORS, the display format of some questions may differ, particularly for drop-down options and tables.

Sector-specific questions

Companies in high-impact sectors, in addition to the general questions, will be presented with questions specific to that sector. The rationale for developing a refined questionnaire for each of these sectors is outlined in the relevant sector introduction.

The sector-specific questions allocated to companies are defined by CDP's Activity Classification System (CDP-ACS). This system categorizes companies by focusing on the activities from which they derive revenue and associating these with the impacts to their business from climate change, water security and deforestation.

Please note that since each questionnaire includes sector-specific questions throughout, as not all questions will be applicable to your organization, some question numbers may skip.

Full and Minimum versions of the questionnaire

All organizations completing the climate change, forests and water security questionnaires are eligible to complete the full questionnaire.

In some cases, organizations may be eligible to complete a minimum version which contains fewer questions, and no sector-specific questions or data points. Organizations are eligible to complete the minimum version in the following circumstances:

- They are disclosing to that questionnaire for the first time; OR
- They are not disclosing to that questionnaire for the first time, but have an annual revenue of less than EUR/US $250 million*

Organizations opting to complete a minimum version will only be eligible for scoring if they are submitting a response to customers (CDP Supply chain members). For more information on scoring eligibility and implications, please see our Scoring Introduction.

* CDP reserves the right to remove the option of completing a minimum version questionnaire for previous responders to a questionnaire with an annual revenue of less than EUR/US$250 million, on the basis of the organization’s potential or existing environmental impact.

Timeline:

For the latest information on the timeline, please refer to our website.

For any disclosure-related enquiries, please contact your regional CDP contact.

CDP forests questionnaire

This questionnaire is the property of CDP Worldwide, reproduction of all or part (including within software platforms) without permission of CDP Worldwide is prohibited. Please contact [email protected] for more information on this.

Introduction to CDP's forests questionnaire

Deforestation and forest degradation account for approximately 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Stopping deforestation and the conversion other natural ecosystems is vital to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of natural capital. Global demand for agricultural commodities is the primary driver of deforestation and ecosystem conversion, as timber is extracted unsustainably and land is cleared for agricultural production. This represents major risks to businesses as agricultural commodities associated with deforestation, i.e. forest risk commodities, are the building blocks of millions of products traded globally and, thus, feature in the supply chains of numerous organizations.

In 2021, 864 organizations responded to CDP’s forests questionnaire, which focuses on how organizations produce, source and use four key forest risk commodities: timber, cattle products, soy, and palm oil. The questionnaire additionally allows disclosure by companies producing, sourcing or using cocoa, coffee, and rubber.

CDP and New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF)

CDP is one of the endorsers of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), a voluntary initiative that brings together governments, companies, civil society and other stakeholders that work collaboratively towards ending deforestation by 2030.

CDP is also part of the NYDF Progress Assessment Partners, an independent monitoring effort undertaken by a growing group of NGOs and research institutions that annually assess progress toward the NYDF.

CDP data is currently used to support the assessment of the NYDF Goal 2, which strives to eliminate deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, wood and cattle products well before 2030. CDP data will also contribute to the assessment of the NYDF Goal 3, which is focused on reducing forest loss linked to non-agricultural drivers.

CDP and Accountability Framework initiative (AFi)

CDP is part of AFi’s collaborative effort to help companies fulfill commitments for responsible agriculture and forestry supply chains. The Accountability Framework provides a set of principles and guidelines designed to establish common definitions, norms, and best practices to help companies set, implement, monitor, and report on ethical supply chain commitments.

CDP has been working in collaboration with AFi to ensure further alignment, so that companies disclosing to CDP will also be reporting on the core principles set out in the initiative. Links between questions in the CDP forest questionnaire and the AFi core principles are indicated in the guidance for individual questions (under "Connection to other frameworks"). A document indicating ways in which CDP may be used to report on topics within the Accountability Framework’s scope is available on the AFi's website.

Sector approach

For forests, CDP has incorporated sector-specific content for three sectors: coal, metals & mining, and paper & forestry. The rationale for developing a refined questionnaire for these sectors is outlined in the relevant sector introductions. Organizations with business activities outside of these sectors will receive a general questionnaire, as in previous years.

Each question number in the forests questionnaire begins with the letter F. Questions that are unique to companies in a particular sector are labelled using a two-letter abbreviation within the question number. These abbreviations are noted below.

• F-CO for the coal sector
• F-MM for the metals & mining sector

In 2022, there are no sector-specific questions for the paper & forestry sector, but response options within questions are tailored to the sector.

Forests questionnaire changes in 2022

In 2022 at least 80% of the questionnaire is unchanged. There are new questions reflecting strategic priorities for CDP and its stakeholders, plus minor revisions reflecting feedback or error correction.

The total number of questions has risen by six to 78 (not including sector specific questions or the supply chain module). Note that each company has a unique pathway through the questionnaires determined by, for example, its sector and its responses as it moves through each module. No company is presented with all questions.

Key changes include:

• Four removed questions:
  • F2.1b (2021) and F2.1c.
  • SF0.2 and SF0.2a [Presented only to companies responding to a request from a customer].
• Eight new questions:
  • F0.6 requests your company's unique identifier.
  • F1.7 requests whether your organisation monitors or collects data on conversion.
  • F2.2, F2.2a requests whether your organisation maps its supply chain.
  • F4.1d requests information on board member competency on forests-related issues.
  • F6.10, F6.10a and F6.10b requests information on engagement with landscape approaches (including jurisdictional approaches).
• Five modified questions:
  • F1.3 question structure has been modified to request new information regarding natural ecosystem conversion.
  • F1.5a question structure has been modified to request new information regarding the percentage of commodity volumes verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free.
  • F2.1a question structure has been modified to allow risk procedures for various stages of the supply chain to be reported together rather than separately. F2.1b- and F2.1c have been merged into F2.1a.
  • F6.3 response option added to allow companies that do not have any third-party certification schemes to indicate if they have plans to adopt one in the next two years.
  • F6.11 (2021 F6.10) question structure modified to request new information on locations. The option to disclose on jurisdictional approaches has been removed.
• Three questions with modified guidance:
  • F3.1b guidance on newly requested ‘acute physical’ and ‘chronic physical’ risk has been added.
  • F6.7 guidance now indicates that companies may report on engagement with smallholders from outside of their value chain.
  • F6.12a (2021 F6.11a) guidance for when companies may select ‘Biodiversity offsetting’ in column ‘Project type’ has been revised.
• Eight questions with additional guidance: F1.3, F2.1a, F3.2a, F4.6a, F6.1a, F6.2a, F6.9, F6.11.
• Thirteen questions with a minor change: F1.2, F3.1b, F3.2a, F4.5a, F4.5b, F4.6a, F4.6b, F6.1a, F6.3a, F6.8, F8.1, F8.2, SF1.1a.

Revisions and changes are also indicated within the questionnaire as: no change, minor change, modified question, new question, modified guidance, or additional guidance. 'Minor change' indicates wording edits and revisions to drop-down options or a simple clarification, while a modification indicates where the data requested has been revised.

A detailed document on forests question changes from 2021 to 2022 can be found on the Guidance page of the website.

Preparing your CDP response

Please find below information on the support materials and options available to companies, and important notes for completing your disclosure. Please review these notes carefully as you prepare your response, even if you have responded to the questionnaire in previous years.

CDP disclosure support materials

CDP provides a variety of support materials to help organizations disclosing to our questionnaires. Before completing the corporate questionnaires, we strongly recommend you read this Reporting Guidance, the Scoring Introduction, and relevant Scoring Methodology. Please also refer to the CDP Technical Notes and other guidance materials accessible from the guidance tool after signing in to the website, and see the Frequently Asked Questions on the website.

Reporting guidance

The reporting guidance in this document includes the following:

• Module-level guidance: for select modules this guidance provides an overview, key changes, sector-specific content for the module, and important disclosure notes. This section also presents question pathway diagrams showing the flow of questions through each module.
• Question-level guidance: at the question level, guidance is separated into the following components, to provide clarity around questions, terminology and requirements.

- Rationale: provides reasoning behind the inclusion of each question;
- Connections to other frameworks: notes connections to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) for each relevant question in the forests questionnaire;
- Requested content: offers context around each question and requested criteria;
- Explanation of terms: provides detailed definitions for specific terminology;
- Example responses: for select questions, this provides an example of a response that would include all information requested; and
- Additional information: for select questions, this provides optional contextual information and sources related to the subject of the disclosure request.

• Glossary: viewable at the end of the reporting guidance, the glossary contains a subset of 'Explanation of terms'

If you have any questions that are not answered in the reporting guidance, the additional guidance noted below, or our Frequently Asked Questions, please contact your local CDP contact.

Webinars and workshops

CDP hosts live webinars and workshops designed to aid you with environmental reporting.

Please visit the workshops and webinars and forests pages of CDP's website for more details.

CDP Reporter Services

CDP Reporter Services program offers tailored support, enhanced data access and thought leadership on managing and reporting environmental risk to your business. Access the tools you need to move from disclosure to leadership on integrating climate, forests management, and water security into your wider business strategy. For year-round, personalized disclosure support from a dedicated CDP account manager, a gap analysis of your previous response, final review before submission, and analytics tools to benchmark yourself against peers and understand best practice contact [email protected]. Visit the Reporter Services page of CDP's website for more information.

Important notes for completing your disclosure

Acronyms

Avoid using bespoke internal acronyms unless required for your organization’s response, in which case please provide their meaning to enable correct analysis and scoring.

Blank responses

Leaving a response blank is interpreted as non-disclosure. For numeric fields, values of zero (0) imply a measurement has been made, and the value is zero (0). For numeric fields where no measurement has been made, please leave the field blank and provide an explanation in an open text field for that same question (e.g. 'Comment' (optional) or 'Please explain'(scored)). If there is no open text field for the question, you may provide an explanation in the 'Further information' field in the ORS at the end of your disclosure. Leaving a response blank and entering a value of zero (0) have different scoring implications. Please see the scoring methodology for more details.

Character limits

The character limits noted in the reporting guidance and in the ORS include spaces.

'Comment' column

Some questions include a column labelled as 'Comment'. Note that providing information in these columns is optional.

Company-specific information

Some questions request company-specific information, rationales, case studies and/or examples. This level of detail gives data users confidence that the issue at hand has been thoroughly considered in the context of the responding organization’s own business and not simply assessed in general terms.

• Be sure to include company-specific detail, such as references to activities, programs, products, services, methodologies, or operating locations unique to your company’s business or operations. A company-specific explanation should include details that make the answer true for the responding company and are distinct from other companies in the same industry and/or geography.
• Clear rationales are those which provide logical reasoning for methodologies, descriptions, decision, and actions.
• Case studies should be company-specific and should follow a “Situation-Task-Action-Result” (STAR) approach: 1) Situation: what was the context? 2) Task: what needed to be done/what was the problem to be solved? 3) Action: what action was taken? 4) Result: what was the final outcome?
  
• An example does not need to follow the STAR approach. It can be shorter than a case study but should include some company-specific detail.
  

For more details, refer to the Scoring Introduction on the CDP website.

Consistency

CDP encourages a comprehensive and consistent response. Please ensure there is no conflicting information in your responses, both within a question and across the questionnaire.

Copy forward

The ‘copy forward’ functionality will be available in the ORS for companies that disclosed to CDP in previous reporting years. This functionality auto-populates your most recent answers into your questionnaire where applicable.

Note that this functionality may have been disabled for modified data points. The reporting guidance will indicate which questions have been modified. The Questionnaire Changes document on the guidance section of the CDP website lists all revisions.

Please review the auto-populated answers carefully. It is your responsiblity to ensure your answers are updated for the accuracy and completeness of your response.

Data accuracy

CDP recognizes that there may be uncertainty linked to data – this can arise from data gaps, assumptions, metering/measurement constraints including equipment accuracy etc. CDP allows estimated data to be submitted. However, an emphasis is placed on reporting transparently and this means that a company should always provide an explanation when its reported data is not accurate and detail the uncertainty (use the 'Please explain' or 'Comment' columns provided in the question).

Drop-down options ('Other, please specify')

Please select from the options provided whenever possible, and only select 'Other, please specify' when none of the listed options is appropriate. This greatly assists data analysis. If selecting 'Other, please specify', you must add a label that describes the option you are providing data for.

'Further information' field

At the end of the questionnaire, there is an opportunity to provide additional information or context that you feel is relevant to your organization’s response. This field is optional and not scored.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As)

All disclosure should be defined by the organizational boundary applicable at the time of the stated reporting period. (Note that for CDP disclosure, organizations are encouraged to align their reporting period and organizational boundaries with their financial reporting).
Regarding forward-looking disclosure, organizations should include information that was correct at the time of the stated reporting period (for example, for data points referring to the future or 'the next two years'). Organizations undergoing (or that have undergone) M&As need to consider the timing of the M&As and reporting period as follows:

• Organizations that were acquired after the end of the current reporting period: these should respond with what was planned (strategy, targets, etc.) before being acquired (i.e., during the reporting period). For transparency, where possible they may state where they consider that the forward-looking information may be subject to change due to the very recent acquisition.
• Organizations that were acquired during the reporting period: these should provide information that was applicable and correct to the best of their knowledge at the end of the reporting period. At the time of submitting their response to CDP, this information may not be the most up to date due to changes underway following the acquisition. For transparency, the company may state this in their disclosure where possible.

Personal data

It is important that you do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response. For questions that ask for the positions of staff, out of respect for personal data privacy we are asking only for the position and not for the individual’s name or any other information relating to them.

Providing feedback to CDP

You can provide feedback to CDP on the content of our questionnaires and supporting documents through our online technical feedback form.

We are unable to respond individually to all feedback, but please be assured that all form submissions are reviewed and contribute towards our continuous improvement.

However, if you represent a responding organization and would like to request a response, please get in touch with your local CDP contact.

Introduction to CDP forests reporting guidance

Forests reporting

CDP’s forests questionnaire seeks to achieve the following:

• Provide a logical structure that guides companies through the journey of removing commodity-driven deforestation from their value chain and improve their understanding of deforestation-related risks;
• Facilitate greater and more robust disclosure while reducing reporting burden, where possible;
• Produce responses that lend themselves to effective engagement between external stakeholders and companies, allow companies to demonstrate progress and good practice, and allow stakeholders to identify and engage with companies that do not take action.
• Gather data on deforestation and forest conservation, as well as on conversion and conservation of other natural ecosystems that provide important ecosystem services, e.g. natural grasslands, savannas and wetlands.

CDP’s approach to reporting on commodity-driven deforestation risk

At present, CDP relies on relevant widely accepted reporting principles as adopted by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (hereafter referred to as the GHG Protocol) to guide organizations reporting on deforestation risk related to the production, trade or use of the following forest risk commodities: timber products, palm oil, cattle products, and soy.

These principles are as follows:

• Relevance: Ensure the commodity inventory appropriately reflects actual commodity production, trade and/or use and serves the decision-making needs of users – both internal and external to the company.
• Completeness: Account for and report on all activities with the potential for deforestation risk within the chosen inventory boundary. Disclose and justify any specific exclusion(s).
• Consistency: Use consistent methodologies to allow for meaningful comparisons of company’s production, trade and/or use of forest risk commodities over time.
• Transparency: Address all relevant issues in a factual and coherent manner, based on a clear audit trail. Disclose any relevant assumptions and make appropriate references to the accounting and calculation methodologies and data sources used. Transparently document any changes to the data, inventory boundary, methods, or any other relevant factors in the time series.
• Accuracy: Ensure the quantification of commodity production, trade and/or use is sufficiently accurate to enable users to make decisions with reasonable assurance as to the integrity of the reported information.

Information is considered relevant if it contains the detail that users, both internal and external to the company, need for their decision-making. When considering what to disclose, please identify and report information that is likely to be of use and benefit to the audience requesting it (in this case the investment community and other data users).

F0 Introduction

Module Overview

This module requests information about your organization’s disclosure to CDP and will help data users to interpret your responses in the context of your business operations, timeframe and reporting boundary.

The information provided here should apply consistently to your responses throughout the questionnaire and be complete and accurate as it may determine response options presented in subsequent modules. For this reason, you should respond to every question in this module and save your response before accessing the rest of the questionnaire.

Disclosure note

• Any exclusions of forest risk commodities, parts of your business, or supply chain should be highlighted in this module, and reasons for these exclusions should be provided in F0.4 and F0.5a. You should ensure that your response does not contain significant exclusions. Examples of significant exclusions could include:

- a company with very large global operations reporting information for only one relevant country.
- a company choosing not to disclose data for a business area, commodity or product which is material to the business and simultaneously has the potential to have a large impact on deforestation/forest degradation.

• Common exclusions not considered to be significant include:

- in-house catering or office copy paper, unless it comprises a large part of the business; and
- biofuels consumed for transportation if they are blended with publicly available gasoline as a result of regulation.

• Organizations that exclude parts of their business or supply chain due to recent structural changes to the organization (within the reporting year), including mergers, acquisitions or divestments, should make this clear in this disclosure.

Key changes

• New question: F0.6 asks for your company's unique identifier
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year

Sector-specific content

• Metals & mining: sector questions ask details on disclosure boundaries and exclusions.
• Coal: sector questions ask details on disclosure boundaries and exclusions.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F0. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Introduction

(F0.1) Give a general description of and introduction to your organization.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This introductory information about the company will help data users to put your response into context in terms of your business activities, impact on the environment, and potential risk exposure.

Response options

This is an open text question with a limit of 5,000 characters.

Requested content

General

• Provide information about your operations and business activities to help data users understand your organization’s forests-related issues and its forests strategy.

Explanation of terms

• Company: throughout this information request, “your company” refers collectively to all the companies, businesses, organizations, other entities or groups that fall within your definition of the reporting boundary.
• Organization: this term is used interchangeably with “your company”. CDP recognizes that some disclosing organizations may not consider themselves to be, or be formally classified, as “companies”.

(F0.2) State the start and end date of the year for which you are reporting data.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This will help data users understand the time frame for which your disclosure relates to.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Apply this reporting year to your answers for the entire questionnaire.
• If you are using the Export/Import functionality, please check that the imported date is correct.
• The current reporting year is the most recent 12-month period for which data is reported.
• The investment community generally prefers a company's disclosure period to match the fiscal year for their financial jurisdiction. This facilitates the assessment of environmental performance data in alignment with their financial performance data.
• CDP recommends that companies provide a year for which they have complete data for their response, if possible. If you do not have data for the entirety of your reporting year, you have the option to extrapolate or estimate your data to cover the entire reporting year.

(F0.3) Select the currency used for all financial information disclosed throughout your response.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

CDP encourages companies to report financial figures associated with their impacts, risks, and opportunities. Disclosing in a single currency will facilitate the collection of comparable financial information. This will benefit investors and other data users when assessing the costs and benefits reported by your organization.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Select the currency to be applied to all financial information and metrics reported in this disclosure.
• All disclosed financial figures throughout the questionnaire will be in the same currency. The currency reported in this question will apply to all reported figures throughout this request.
• For example, if you select USD ($) here, this will determine the currency of the ‘Total financial impact’ column reported in the ‘Detrimental impacts on your business’ question.

(F0.4) Select the forest risk commodities that you are, or are not, disclosing on (including any that are sources for your processed ingredients or manufactured goods); and for each select the stages of the supply chain that best represent your organization’s area of operation.

Question Dependencies

Your selection(s) in this question will affect the modules, commodities, questions and options shown.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question clarifies your organization’s exposure to the forest risk commodities and establishes the business activities for which you will be disclosing corporate data.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

* Not shown for companies from the paper & forestry sector

Requested content

General

• Your company should disclose information for all the forest-risk commodities (timber products, palm oil, cattle products and soy) it produces, sources or uses. This includes:
  • processed ingredients and manufactured goods that contain forest risk commodities or their derivatives.
  • plus any indirect commodities i.e. commodities embedded in products, or the production of those products, anywhere within your value chain (e.g. soy used by your suppliers to feed animals bred for consumption or to produce eggs or dairy).
• Additionally, if your company produces, sources and/or uses natural rubber, coffee or cocoa or any products derived from this these commodities, you can also choose to disclose information by filling in the row for “Other – Rubber”, “Other – Cocoa”, or “Other – Coffee”.
• Commodity-specific response options in subsequent questions primarily focus on the key forest-risk commodities. If you are disclosing on any of the “Other” commodities (cocoa, rubber or coffee), you might have to use the “Other, please specify” dropdown to input the relevant information in responses to some of the subsequent questions.

Commodity disclosure (column 2)

• Indicate for each forest risk commodity whether you are “Disclosing”, “Not disclosing” or if “This commodity is not produced, sourced or used by our organization”.
• Select “Disclosing” if the forest risk commodity is produced, sourced or used by your organization and you are disclosing your corporate information about this commodity.
• Note that only those commodity(ies) for which you select “Disclosing” will feature throughout the questionnaire (and subsequent modules will appear). For example, if you select “Timber products” and “Palm oil” here, only these options will appear in column 1 of F1.1.
• If, at a later stage, you decide you want to add and disclose on a commodity, you will need to return to this question and add it by selecting “Disclosing” in the row for the relevant commodity.
• Select “Not disclosing” for each commodity that is produced, sourced or used by your organization but on which you will not be disclosing data.
• Select “This commodity is not produced, sourced or used by our organization” for each commodity that is not produced, sourced or used by your organization.
• If you select “Not disclosing” or “This commodity is not produced, sourced or used by our organization” for all commodities, you will be directed to Module F17 (Signoff).

Stages of the supply chain (column 3)

• Select all the stages of the supply chain that correspond to your business activities linked to the forests risk commodity you are disclosing on. You can find definitions of each stage in the “Explanation of terms” section.
• If you are disclosing "Timber products" as an end-user/consumer in relation to the packaging of materials, select the stage of the supply chain that relates to your core business activity. For example, an online retailer that uses paper packaging should select “Retailing” in this column.
• Your selection(s) in this question will drive questions and response options that are specific to your organization’s position in the supply chain.
• The selection of stages of the supply chain is per commodity you are disclosing on, as there might be differences between different commodities.

Explanation if... (column 4)

• If you produce, process, manufacture, trade or sell raw materials/manufactured goods from a specific commodity but will not be disclosing on it as part of this information request, provide an explanation here.
• You should ensure that your response does not contain any significant commodity exclusions. Examples of significant exclusions are provided in the introduction to this module. Any exclusions should be clearly specified and justified.

Explanation of terms

Based on definitions from the Global Canopy’s Forest 500 Selection methodology, and the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) definitions, the supply chain activities are broken down as follows:

• Production: this is the first stage of the supply chain and generally refers to the production of raw agricultural and forests products by farm owners, smallholders, and communities. Vertically integrated companies are also involved in producing activities if they own or manage land used for the production of forests risk commodities.
• Processing: for the purpose of this disclosure, processing encompasses the initial transformative activities that will add value to raw materials. For example: Companies involved in the production of crude palm oil from crushed fruit or the production of soybean oil and soybean meal from soybean would select this activity. Further processing activities in the form of refining and fractionation should be considered in the manufacturing stage.

- Companies involved in the production of crude palm oil from crushed fruit or the production of soybean oil and soybean meal from soybean would select this activity. Further processing activities in the form of refining and fractionation should be considered in the manufacturing stage.

- In the case of timber products, companies whose activities include the initial processing of timber products in mills (i.e., sawmills, plywood and veneer mills, pulp and paper mills) would select this stage.

- For cattle products, activities at this stage primarily involve the slaughtering of cattle and the processing of raw hide into leather.

• Trading: at this supply chain stage, businesses purchase and sell raw or primary processed agricultural or forestry materials to either domestic or export markets. This includes the shipment, transport and storage of the forest risk commodities.
• Manufacturing: this includes the production of final ingredients for the food, feed and fuel sectors from raw or processed materials. For example:

- In palm oil and soybean supply chains, this stage may include the refining of oil into shortening and the use of ingredients in the manufacture of bakery products.

- For timber products, the manufacturing stage involves the secondary processing of wood into multiple products. This may include furniture, flooring, plywood and boards, as well as other building materials. For pulp and paper, this may include the conversion of pulp to printing and writing paper, newsprint, tissue, container boards, and packaging.

- Companies may manufacture cattle products into products containing beef (e.g., retail meat products, fast food, byproducts including glycerin/gelatin) and leather products for various industries (such as footwear, clothing, furniture and car upholstery) (adapted from Global Canopy, 2018 and AFi, 2019).

• Retailing: a company that sells products directly to individual consumers. This includes supermarkets, convenience stores, lumber and home improvement stores, home furnishing stores, online retailers, restaurant chains and the like.

Additional information

The table below provides further details on the forms of the key forest risk commodities considered in the questionnaire:

Example response

(F0.5) Are there any parts of your direct operations or supply chain that are not included in your disclosure?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

CDP seeks to share comprehensive and representative data. If companies do need to exclude parts of their business and/or supply chain from the disclosure, data users must be informed of the exclusions as this may affect their analysis.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes
• No

Requested content

General

• Any groups, companies, businesses or organizations that fall within your organizational boundary or within your supply chain but are not included in your disclosure should be disclosed in F0.5a.
• Exclusions that fall within this defined boundary should not be disclosed in F1.5a. Production and consumption data that is missing following the exclusions reported in F0.5a (e.g. a portion of the commodity used in a factory) can be disclosed in F1.5a.
• If your disclosure includes all aspects of your organization please select ‘No’
• If your disclosure excludes certain aspects of your organization please select ‘Yes’.
• Elements of your business or supply chain may be excluded for a number of reasons:

- A geographical location may be excluded if there is no commodity usage or a current lack of visibility over management practices which makes reporting unfeasible for operations in that country or region until systems have been put in place;
- An activity (e.g. type of business process, or type of supplier) may be excluded due to limited data or reporting feasibility;
- A facility may be excluded due to recent business mergers, acquisitions of another company/subsidiary/facility and divestment of certain aspects of the business, outsourcing and in-sourcing of activities; and
- A specific product line may be excluded due to limited data or reporting feasibility.

• References in the information request to “your organization” are to the entities within your organizational boundary for which you are providing information. Please apply this logic consistently when responding to questions.
• References in the information request to your “supply chain” are to the entities outside of your organizational boundary for which you are providing information. Please apply this logic consistently when responding to questions
• Note that retailers are only expected to report on their own-branded products, excluding products owned and branded by third parties.

Explanation of terms

• Direct operations: your organization’s operations include anything your company does itself for the purpose of producing goods and services and maintaining the functionality of the business. This covers any internal supply chains between your organization’s business units. For example, a business unit within your company that supplies components to another business unit within your company would be considered part of your organization’s own operations.
• Supply chain: your organization’s supply chain is comprised of all external inputs to your operations, including materials, components, consumable inputs, and services. The scope of your supply chain may extend to multiple levels of supply, e.g. component suppliers and the suppliers of raw materials used to produce those components.

Additional information

• Exclusions can impact your conformance with AFi principles. Companies’ commitments should apply to all segments of the company’s business for which agricultural or forestry commodities may pose environmental or social risks, such as risks related to a company’s own operations, sourcing, and/or financing. Any exclusions from commitments should be clearly specified and justified based on credible risk assessment (AFi, 2019)

(F0.5a) Identify the parts of your direct operations or supply chain that are not included in your disclosure.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select “Yes” in response to F0.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

CDP seeks to share comprehensive and representative data. If companies do need to exclude parts of their business and/or supply chain from the disclosure, data users must be informed of the exclusions as this may affect their analysis..

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

General

• Any exclusions of your business can be highlighted here and duly explained.
• Exclusions that include any groups, companies, businesses or organizations that fall within your organizational boundary or within your supply chain, but are not included in your disclosure, should be reported here and not in F1.5a. Production and consumption data that is missing following the exclusions reported here (e.g. a portion of the commodity used in a factory) can be disclosed in F1.5a.

Value chain stage (column 1)

• Indicate whether the exclusion refers to your direct operations or to your supply chain.

Exclusion (column 2)

• Select the category that best describes the part of your direct operations or your supply chain that is being excluded from your disclosure.

Description of exclusion (column 3)

• Clearly outline these exclusions, including details such as the exact geographical location, activity, and the name of the business unit, product line, or facility.

Potential for forests-related risk (column 4)

• Potential for forests-related risk refers to any operation that may directly or indirectly impact forests. Please indicate whether you have evaluated whether there is potential for such a risk for the excluded location, activity, facility, product line, etc. and whether there is potential risk present or not.

Please explain (column 5)

• Use this column to explain your exclusions and their (potential) linkage to deforestation and/or conversion of natural ecosystems.

Explanation of terms

• Business activity: includes any activity engaged in the primary purpose of making a profit. This is a general term that encompasses all the economic activities carried out by a company during the course of business. This could be a type of business process for example.
• Country/geographical area: a geographical location that can include a country, state/region, landscape, biome, province, municipality or any other national, regional or local administrative division where you produce/source materials from.
• Direct operations: your organization’s operations include anything your company does itself for the purpose of producing goods and services and maintaining the functionality of the business. This covers any internal supply chains between your organization’s business units. For example, a business unit within your company that supplies components to another business unit within your company would be considered part of your organization’s own operations.
• Facility: as a broad term, this may be used to describe a variety of types of business operations as well as fixed buildings, factories, sites, farms or other grouping of assets.
• Specific product line(s): a group of related products under a single brand sold by the same company.
• Supply chain: your organization’s supply chain is comprised of all external inputs to your operations, including materials, components, consumable inputs, and services. The scope of your supply chain may extend to multiple levels of supply, e.g. component suppliers and the suppliers of raw materials used to produce those components.

Example response

(F0.6) Does your organization have an ISIN code or another unique identifier (e.g., Ticker, CUSIP, etc.?)

Change from last year

New question

Rationale

ISIN codes and other market identifiers are used globally in the identification of securities such as bonds, futures, and stocks. Providing your organization’s unique identifier(s) will increase the transparency of your response.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add row]

Requested content

General

• If your organization has multiple unique identifiers, add a row for each.

Provide your unique identifier (column 2)

• This column is only presented if one of the "Yes" options is selected in column 1.
• Ensure that you enter the correct format for your unique identifier. For example, ISIN codes include a two-letter country code, followed by a nine-character alphanumeric identifier and a single check digit.

Explanation of terms

• ISIN: International Securities Identification Number, a 12-character alphanumeric code used to identify a security, such as a stock or bond. It is structured with the first two letters referencing the country of origin of the issuer for the security, in accordance with ISO 3166. The second grouping consists of nine characters made up of digits and letters, which is the unique identifying code for the security. In the U.S. and Canada this is known as the CUSIP number (see below). The final digit is the check digit, which ensures the authenticity of the code.
• CUSIP number: Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures number, a 9-character alphanumeric code that identifies a security for the purposes of facilitating clearing and settlement of trades. CUSIPs are used to distinguish, among other reasons, between multiple share classes or bond tranches. CUSIPs are mostly used in the United States and Canada.
• Ticker symbol: A ticker symbol, also known as a stock symbol, is a unique series of letters assigned to a security for trading purposes. Ticker symbols are usually related to the organization’s name, and additional letters denote additional characteristics such as share class or trading restrictions.
• SEDOL code: Stock Exchange Daily Official List code, a 7-character identification code consisting of two parts: a 6-character alphanumeric code and a trailing check digit. SEDOLs issued prior to January 26, 2004 were composed only of numbers. SEDOLs serve as the National Securities Identifying Number for all securities issued in the United Kingdom.

F1 Current state

Module Overview

This module provides a snapshot of how forests-related issues are associated with your business and how aware your company is of these issues throughout its value chain, including:

• your business’s links to and dependency on forest risk commodities;
• your business’s use of land resources to produce forest risk commodities;
• how your business has been impacted by any forests-related issues so far; and
• your business' awareness of the current and immediate future supply of forest risk commodities.

This module contains a few questions that are country-specific, which will only be shown according to your selection of countries in F1.1.

Key changes

• Modified question: F1.3 question structure has been modified to request new information regarding natural ecosystem conversion.
• Modified question: F1.5a question structure has been modified to request new information regarding the percentage of commodity volumes verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free.
• New question: F1.7 asks whether your organisation monitors or collects data on conversion.
• Additional guidance: A definition of ‘Conversion’, a definition of ‘Cutoff date’ and a definition of ‘High conservation value’ have been added in F1.3.
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F1. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Dependence

(F1.1) How does your organization produce, use or sell your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers details on your business’ dependency on forest risk commodities. Disclosure of this information, regarding both direct operations or other parts of the value chain, reflects best practices of corporate reporting and provides context to investors and other data users on how relevant forest risk commodities are to the disclosing organization. Organizations benefit from disclosing this information by increasing awareness of their own dependency on forest risk commodities and promoting transparency of their business activities.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5. Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 12. Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Activity (column 2)

Form of commodity (column 3)

* Not shown for companies from the paper & forestry sector

Requested content

General

• Please respond to this question by completing one row for each commodity(ies) selected in F0.4.
• Include both direct and indirect commodity use. For example, include soy used for animal feed, if applicable.
• Disclose information on all raw material inputs to your direct operations, as well as on goods that are bought in for use within the business or for onward sale to customers.

Activity (column 2)

• For this column, select all options that describe how you use the commodity indicated in column 1 (Forest risk commodity).
• If none of the available options are suitable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Form of commodity (column 3)

• If you use more than one form of a commodity, select all that apply. For example, a manufacturer of personal products may use both palm oil derivatives and palm kernel oil derivatives.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Source (column 4)

• The source refers to the type of supplier you source the commodity from.
• If you source the commodity from more than one type of supplier, you may select all that apply. For example, a processor may source timber to produce pulp from their own plantations as well as from smallholders.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Country/Area of origin (column 5)

• For each of your disclosed commodities, select the countries/areas of origin. This information refers to the country/area in which your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies) are grown, harvested or reared, and not the location where it is further processed or turned into manufactured goods.
• Select all applicable countries/regions of origin.
• Select 'Unknown origin' in addition to counties/areas if you are partially unsure about the country/area of origin of part of the disclosed commodity(ies).

% of procurement spend (column 6)

• For each of your disclosed commodities, please indicate the associated percentage of your total procurement spend.
• This figure should be the percentage of procurement spend on the different forms of the commodity as a percentage of total sourcing across your organization, to give an indication of relative spend.
• CDP expects all responding companies to provide this estimation. For companies that are only producers, however, this information may not be relevant. If an estimation of procurement spend is not applicable for your business activity please select 'Not applicable' in this column and explain this in the 'Comment' column.

Comment (column 7) (optional)

• You may use this column to provide:

- An explanation if you selected 'Not applicable' in % procurement spend (column 6).
- Details on the form of the commodity and/or source for which you selected 'Unknown origin' in the 'Country/Area of origin' (column 5).

Explanation of terms

• Smallholders: are small-scale agricultural or forest producers with high dependence on family labor, generally having low levels of productivity, small land footprint, significant economic and information constraints and/or farmers profit being the primary source of income for the smallholder and their family (adapted from AFi, 2019).

Example response

(F1.2) Indicate the percentage of your organization’s revenue that was dependent on your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies) in the reporting year.

Change from last year

Minor change

Rationale

This question gathers data on your business revenue associated with each of your disclosed commodities (or their derivatives/products). It aims to establish the relevance of each forest risk commodity to your business, by highlighting your organization’s revenue dependence on the commodity during the reporting year. CDP has chosen the metric of “percentage of revenue dependent on commodity” in collaboration with stakeholders. This metric is representative of the importance of the commodity to the business, as well as being readily quantifiable and comparable. CDP data-users can further assess the relative importance of each forest risk commodity to your business and link this information to other disclosed data points throughout the questionnaire.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• For each of your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate the percentage of your organization’s revenue that was dependent on the commodity in the reporting year by selecting a percentage range. Note that, if you are a producer/processor, this refers to the percentage of revenue associated with the total production of the actual commodity. Whereas, if you are a manufacturer/retailer this refers to the percentage of revenue associated with the derivative/product containing the forest risk commodity. Any of these options could apply if you are a trader.
• Enter any additional information you wish to provide to your stakeholders in column 3 (Comment). This may include where possible, an explanation of how this figure was calculated, the exact percentage of revenue dependent on the commodity, or any factors that may have contributed to how the percentage was estimated.
• If you selected "Don't know" in column 2, provide an explanation of why you do not know how much of your revenue comes from the disclosed commodity.
• Your reporting year is the time period you stated in response to question F0.2 in the introduction module.

Example response

A retailer disclosing on palm oil, soy and timber products

A materials company disclosing on timber products

An apparel company disclosing on cattle products

Measurement

(F1.3) Provide details on the land area you control and/or manage that is used for the production of your disclosed commodity(ies).

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select "Production" in response to F0.4.

Change from last year

Modified question; Additional guidance

Rationale

The data disclosed in this question provides an indication of your market power and potential influence over land use in different regions, including eventual links to deforestation and/or conversion of natural ecosystems. Deforestation and conversion on land you control or manage can pose operational or reputational risks, e.g. organizations may face consumer boycotts or be subject to divestment policies. Therefore, it is important to demonstrate to investors and other stakeholders that your organization has a good understanding of the land resources it controls and/or manages.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 7: Land acquisition, land use planning, and site development

Core Principle 8: Land management and long-term protection

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Certification scheme (column 7)

Requested content

General

• CDP encourages organizations to provide data that encompasses all their operations.
• Where your organization owns and/or manages land, please disclose on land holdings under production by adding a row per commodity for each country/area and type of control.

Forest risk commodity (column 1)

• Please add at least a row for each of your disclosed commodity(ies) per country/area where you own/manage land.

Type of control (column 2)

• Select the option that best represents your organization’s control over land in a specific country. If you have more than one type of control per country/area, you will need to add a row for each type of control.
• If you are an independent smallholder, you should select "Own land" in response to this question.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select "Other type of control, please specify" and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Country/Area (column 3)

• If you own/manage land to produce the forest risk commodity(ies) in more than one country/area, please add a row for each relevant country/area.

Land type (column 4)

• This column will only appear if 'Timber products' is selected in Column 1.
• This column allows for a differentiation between production originating from managed natural forests and from tree plantations. Areas of managed natural forests and tree plantations should be disclosed in different rows.
• Select "Other, please specify" if you would like to add another land type and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Area (hectares) (column 5)

• Please disclose in hectares the land area used for production of the forest risk commodity(ies) and associated with the type of control in that country/area selected in column 2.

% Area certified (column 6)

• This refers to the percentage of area reported in column 5 (Area) that is certified under credible sustainability certification schemes.
• If the production area being disclosed in this row is not certified under such scheme, then select "0" in response to this column and provide an explanation in column 11 (Please explain).

Certification scheme (column 7)

• For each row, if the owned/managed land area disclosed is certified under more than one credible sustainability certification scheme, select all certification schemes that apply.
• If none of the available options are suitable, or you would like to add another scheme, please select "Other, please specify" and specify your scheme.
• If the production area being disclosed in this row is not certified, select "No certified areas in this country/area".

Conversion of natural ecosystems monitored during the reporting year, the last 5 years and/or since specified cutoff date (column 8)

• If you monitor the conversion of natural ecosystems to another land use (including set aside land) on land you control and/or manage, select all the timeframes that apply.
• If you select "We have monitored conversion of natural ecosystems since specified cutoff date, please specify year", provide a label for the cutoff date used.
• If you do not monitor the conversion of natural ecosystems to another land use (including set aside land) on land you control and/or manage over any of the timeframe options, select "We have not monitored conversion of natural ecosystems" only.
• For more clarity and definitions then see the "Explanation of terms" and "Additional information".

Area of natural ecosystems converted during the reporting year (hectares) (column 9)

• If you have selected "We have monitored conversion of natural ecosystems during the reporting year" in column 8, report how many hectares of natural ecosystems have been converted during the reporting year.
• Zero (0) should only be used for reporting zero hectares and not for an absence of data.

Area of natural ecosystems converted since specified cutoff date (hectares) (column 10)

• If you have selected "We have monitored conversion of natural ecosystems since specified cutoff date, please specify year" in column 8, report how many hectares of natural ecosystems have been converted since the specified cutoff date.
• Zero (0) should only be used for reporting zero hectares and not for an absence of data.

Area of natural ecosystems converted during the last 5 years (hectares) (column 11)

• If you have selected "We have monitored conversion of natural ecosystems during the last 5 years" in column 8, report how many hectares of natural ecosystems have been converted in the last 5 years.
• Zero (0) should only be used for reporting zero hectares and not for an absence of data.

Please explain (column 12)

• You should use this column to provide:

-An explanation if you selected "0" in "% Area certified" (column 6), including any plans for adopting sustainability certification schemes in the future.
- If you selected any options other than "We have not monitored conversion of natural ecosystems" in column 8, describe methods and data sources used to monitor conversion.
- If you entered a value other than zero (0) in column 9, 10 or 11, you may provide relevant details on vegetation type, biome, legality of conversion, and High Conservation Value (HCV) status of the area that has been converted.
- An attachment of published georeferenced maps or geographic coordinates of land under production (this is optional).

Explanation of terms

• Concession/lease: the right to use land or other property to produce forest risk commodities, granted by a government, company, landholder, or a controlling body.
• Conversion: human-induced change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, and/or function.

-Deforestation is one form of conversion (conversion of natural forests)

- Conversion includes severe degradation or the introduction of management practices that result in a substantial and sustained change in the ecosystem’s former species composition, structure, or function.

-Change to natural ecosystems that meets this definition is considered to be conversion regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Cutoff date: the date after which deforestation or conversion renders a given area or production unit non-compliant with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, respectively (AFi, 2019).
• High conservation value: biological, ecological, social or cultural values which are considered outstandingly significant or critically important, at the national, regional or global level, as defined by the High Conservation Values (HCV) Resource Network.
• Natural ecosystem: an ecosystem that substantially resembles—in terms of species composition, structure, and ecological function—one that is or would be found in a given area in the absence of major human impacts. This includes human-managed ecosystems where much of the natural species composition, structure, and ecological function are present (AFi, 2019).
• Outgrowers: an outgrower scheme is defined as a contractual partnership between growers or landholders and a company for the production of commodities (FAO, 2001).
• Scheme/plasma smallholders: area of land managed for schemed smallholders or plasma scheme plantations.
• Tree plantations: a forest predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding that lacks key elements of natural forest native to an area such as species composition and structural diversity.

-Tree plantations generally have one or a few tree species and tend to include one or more of the following characteristics (i) planted on cleared land, (ii) harvest regularly, (iii) trees are of even ages, (iv) products from plantation are managed and processed for commercial plantation.

-Tree plantations can consist of tree planted for timber, pulp, non-timber forest products (e.g., rubber latex), or ecosystem services (e.g., soil stabilization). Plantation dominantly by agricultural species (e.g., fruits or oil palm) are considered agriculture, not tree plantations (AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• For information on whether the conversion of different land types would violate no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, please see AFi’s Operational Guidance on Applying the Definitions Related to Deforestation, Conversion, and Protection of Ecosystems.
• A useful diagram of what constitutes conversion of natural forest into planted area can be found here.

(F1.4) Provide details on the land you control and/or manage that was not used for the production of your disclosed commodity(ies) in the reporting year.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select "Production” in response to F0.4.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers information on land that you control and/or manage which may, or may not, be developed at a later stage for the production of forest risk commodities. Disclosure of land holdings is critical for understanding current and future forest-related risks and opportunities. By disclosing this data you provide investors and other data users insights on land stewardship as well as on challenges your organization may face in expanding production areas.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 7: Land acquisition, land use planning, and site development

Core Principle 8: Land management and long-term protection

Core Principle 9. Access to remedy and environmental restoration

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

Forest risk commodity (column 1)

• Add at least one row for each of your disclosed commodity(ies) where you control and/or manage land that was not in use for the production of forests risks commodities in the reporting year. This land may be designated for future cultivation or rearing of the forest risk commodity(ies), or the land may be set-aside for conservation.

Country/Area (column 2)

• If you own/manage land not under production located in more than one country/area, please add a row for each relevant country/area per land type.
• If you did not control and/or manage any land that was not used for production in the reporting year, select any country/area where land that you control and/or manage for production is located. Ensure that 0 (zero) is entered in C5: Area (Ha) and C6: % covered by natural forests.

Type of control (column 3)

• Select the option that best represents your organization’s control over land in a specific country.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select "Other type of control, please specify" and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Land type (column 4)

• Provide information on each type of land controlled/managed by your organization within each country.
• See the definition of each land type option in the "Explanation of terms".
• Select "Other land type, please specify" if you would like to add another land type and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Area (Ha) (column 5)

• If you did not control and/or manage any land that was not used for production in the reporting year, enter 0 (zero).

% covered by natural forests (column 6)

• This refers to the percentage of area reported in column 5 (Area (hectares)) that is covered by natural forest. For clarity on what is meant by "natural forests", refer to the "Explanation of terms".
• If you did not control and/or manage any land that was not used for production in the reporting year, enter 0 (zero).

Please explain (column 7)

• If you selected "Natural ecosystems with potential to be legally converted for forest risk commodity production" in column 4 (land type) , you can provide further details on the necessary permits that you have obtained to expand for that forest risk commodity in the country/area (e.g. obtained a HGU in Indonesia in the case of palm oil).
• If you selected "Set-aside land" in column 4 (land type), provide more details on the type of set-aside such as protected areas, peatlands, High Conservation Value (HCV) or High Carbon Stock (HCS) areas. If you have selected "Brazil" in column 2 (Country/Area) then these might be Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs) and Legal Reserves, as defined by the Brazilian Forest Code.
• Also provide details on how the land is being managed effectively to retain its conservation values.
• Provide a description of how your future operation/expansion plans avoid deforestation.

Explanation of terms

• Concession/lease: the right to use land or other property to produce forest risk commodities, granted by a government, company, landholder, or a controlling body.
• Degraded/abandoned area with potential for forest risk commodity production: land owned/managed by the company that is not used for commodity production due to degradation/abandonment, but has the potential to produce palm oil, soy and timber products.
• Natural ecosystem: an ecosystem that substantially resembles—in terms of species composition, structure, and ecological function—one that is or would be found in a given area in the absence of major human impacts. This includes human-managed ecosystems where much of the natural species composition, structure, and ecological function are present (AFi, 2019).
• Natural forest: a forest that is a natural ecosystem, i.e., possesses most of the native species composition, structure, and ecological function as a forest native to the given site. This includes:

- Primary forests that have not been subject to major human impacts in recent history;

- Regenerated (second-growth) forests that were subject to major anthropogenic impacts in the past (e.g., by agriculture, livestock raising, tree plantations, or intensive logging) but where the main causes of impact have ceased or greatly diminished and the ecosystem has attained much of the species composition, structure and ecological function of prior or other contemporary natural ecosystems;

- Managed natural forests where much of the ecosystem composition, structure, and ecological function exist in the presence of activities such as: (a) Harvesting of timber or other forest products, including management to promote high-value species, (b) Low intensity, small-scale cultivation within the forest, such as less-intensive forms of swidden agriculture in a forest mosaic; and

- Forests that have been partially degraded by anthropogenic or natural causes (e.g., harvesting, fire, climate change, invasive species) but where the land has not been converted to another use and where degradation does not result in the sustained reduction of tree cover below the thresholds that define a forest or sustained loss of other main elements of ecosystem composition, structure, and ecological function (AFi, 2019).

• Set-aside land: land owned/managed by the company that is not used for production or planned development and is set-aside for conservation purposes.

(F1.5) Does your organization collect production and/or consumption data for your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers information on whether organizations collect data on the production and/or the consumption of their disclosed forest risk commodity(ies). Collecting data that is representative of your total production and/or consumption volumes reflects best practices in corporate reporting and provides context to investors and other data users about how informed you are regarding your own operations and/or your supply chain. Companies that collate this information can attain a better picture of their reliance on forests risk commodities and potential exposure to any related risks and impacts, which is an important step in removing deforestation and forest degradation from direct operations and supply chains.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

AFi

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Select the option that best describes the collection of data on each of your forest risk commodities. Depending on your organizational structure, this can be either production or consumption data, or both.
• Subsequent questions will allow you to provide details on these data.

Explanation of terms

• Consumption data: refers to data on the sourcing/purchasing of the forest risk commodities within your supply chain. For example, if you are a manufacturer that collects data from your suppliers.
• Production data: refers to data on the cultivation/rearing/harvesting of raw materials, such as data from your production of soy beans or palm oil.

Additional information

• Companies tracking soy consumption, for example, could use the CGF Soy Ladder - framework developed by The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) in conjunction with KPMG to better understand soy usage within their supply chains, and the associated deforestation risk.
• Companies may wish to use the Responsible Sourcing Implementation Framework being developed by Proforest and the Earthworm Foundation. This framework helps companies track the commodity volumes being sold or purchased that comply with policy commitments. Commodity-specific frameworks are also being developed for tracking soy volumes and palm oil volumes.

(F1.5a) Disclose your production and/or consumption figure, and the percentage of commodity volumes verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Consumption data available, disclosing’, ‘Production data available, disclosing’, or ‘Consumption and production data available, disclosing’ in response to F1.5.

Change from last year

Modified question, Additional guidance

Rationale

This question gathers details on the data organizations collect data on the production and/or the consumption of their disclosed forest risk commodity(ies).

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

AFi

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

General

• Add at least one row for each commodity for which you collect data and as disclose in F1.5.
• Provide your production and consumption figures for the reporting period separately, by adding a new row for the same commodity and selecting the appropriate option in this column.

Commodity production/ consumption volume (column 3)

• Provide a figure consistent with the type of data selected in column 2 (Data type).

Metric for commodity production/ consumption volume (column 4)

• For the figure provided in column 3 (Commodity production/consumption volume), select the metric that applies or select ‘Other, please specify’ and state the metric.

Data coverage (column 5)

• Indicate if the data provided covers your entire production and/or consumption of the commodity, apart from exclusions already described in F0.5 and F0.5a.
• This column should not be used to disclose the exclusion of groups, companies, businesses or organizations that fall within your organizational boundary or within your supply chain but are not included in your disclosure. This should be disclosed in F0.5a.
• Select 'Partial commodity production/consumption' if there is data missing additional to the exclusions reported in F0.5a (e.g. a portion of the commodity used in a factory).

Have any of your reported commodity volumes been verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free? (column 6)

• Indicate if the reported volumes in the previous columns have undergone any internal, external or third-party verification processes to determine their status as deforestation- and/or conversion-free (e.g. verified as NDPE for palm oil).
• If you have undertaken such a process and determined none of the commodity volume status is deforestation- and/or conversion-free, please select ‘Yes’, state ‘0%’ in column 7 (% of reported volume verified as deforestation- and/or conversion free), and state your methods in column 8 (Please explain).

% of reported volume verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free (column 7)

• Provide a figure for the % of the commodity volume reported in column 3 (Commodity production/consumption volume) that is verified as deforestation- and/or conversion-free.

Please explain (column 8)

• If the data you provided excludes certain parts of your business or supply chain other than those reported in the Introduction module, provide an explanation of the exclusion. This explanation should provide the percentage of your total production and/or consumption that the exclusion represents.
• If you selected 'Yes' in column 6 (Have any of your reported commodity volumes been verified as deforestatation- and/or conversion-free?) state the methods used to verify deforestation- and/or conversion-free status, including for example the use of any specific physical, segregated certification schemes or operations in low-risk areas (including risk stratification and verification methodologies), and any specified cutoff date(s).

Explanation of terms

• Consumption data: refers to data on the sourcing/purchasing of the forest risk commodities within your supply chain. For example, if you are a manufacturer that collects data from your suppliers.
• Cutoff date: the date after which deforestation or conversion renders a given area or production unit non-compliant with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, respectively (AFi, 2019)
• Deforestation- and/or conversion-free: commodity sourcing or production that does not cause or contribute to the deforestation or conversion of natural ecosystems (based on AFi, 2019)
• Production data: refers to data on the cultivation/rearing/harvesting of raw materials, such as data from your production of soy beans or palm oil.
• Verification: assessment and validation of compliance, performance, and/or actions relative to a stated commitment, standard, or target. Verification processes typically utilize monitoring data but may also include other sources of information and analysis (AFi, 2019)

(F1.5b) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate the percentage of the production/consumption volume sourced by national and/or sub-national jurisdiction of origin.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select "Consumption data available, disclosing", "Production data available, disclosing" or "Consumption and production data available, disclosing" in response to F1.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question provides data users with more clarity about your organization's exposure to deforestation/forest degradation risks. Disclosers will benefit from this question by becoming more transparent and being able to more easily identify any risks to their business.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add row]

Requested content

General

• For each of your disclosed commodities, provide a breakdown of your consumption/production volume by jurisdictions of origin.
• If you have indicated in question F1.1 that all or part of the consumption/production originates from forest risk countries, a further breakdown by subnational jurisdiction is requested.
• If you have any volumes of unknown origin, you will be able to disclose it here.

Country/Area of origin (column 2)

• For each commodity, add rows to provide a breakdown of your production/consumption volume by forest risk country, other countries/areas and of unknown origin.
• In the case of forest risk countries, you will be able to provide a further breakdown by subnational jurisdiction in column 3 (State or equivalent).
• Note that this list of countries is not the same as C5: Country/Area of origin in F1.1. This list only includes countries that are considered as forest risk countries.
• Select “Any other countries/areas” to disclose all production/consumption volume that does not originate from forest risk countries listed in F1.1 but which you have information of origin. For example, timber products that originate in Norway and Sweden would be disclosed together under this dropdown.
• Select “Unknown origin” to disclose the volume of consumption/production that you cannot specify is originating from “forest risk country(ies)” or “Any other countries/areas”.
• Companies that have indicated “Unknown origin” as part of their response to question F1.1, column 5 (Country/Area of origin), are expected to have volumes disclosed here.

State or equivalent jurisdiction (column 3)

• This column is presented if you have selected a forest risk country in response to column 2 (Country/Area of origin).
• Select the first-level administrative division within that country from which your production/consumption volume originates from. For instance, this could be a federal state, a department, or a province (e.g. the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil).
• If your production/consumption volume originates from more than one state (or equivalent jurisdiction) in the same country, please add one row for each state.
• If your organization has no information on the state (or equivalent jurisdiction) where your forest risk commodity(ies) is coming from, select “Don’t know” and provide an explanation in the "Please explain" column.
• If your organization has the information but is not disclosing, select “Not disclosing” and provide an explanation in the "Please explain" column.

% of total production/consumption volume (column 4)

• Indicate the percentage of the total production and/or consumption volume for the specified forest risk commodity, as disclosed in question F1.5a, that is sourced from the disclosed jurisdiction.
• If your organization disclosed production and consumption volumes in F1.5a, this percentage relates to the sum of both (production volume + consumption volume).
• If you have selected a forest risk country in column 2 and specified one or more states (or equivalent jurisdictions) in column 3 (State or equivalent), this refers to the percentage originating from that particular jurisdiction (e.g., % of total soy production and/or consumption originating from the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil).
• If you have selected a forest risk country in column 2 but selected “Don’t know” or “Not disclosing” in column 3, this refers to the percentage originating from the forest risk country (i.e., with no breakdown by subnational jurisdiction).
• If you have selected “Any other countries/areas” or “Unknown origin” in column 2, then disclose the percentage of your production/consumption volume that falls into these categories.
• Percentages smaller than 0.01% should be rounded up to 0.01%. In column 5 (Please explain), indicate clearly that this is the case, and the smaller value may be provided.
• It is expected that the percentages disclosed will sum up to 100% (+/- 5%), covering the totality of the volumes disclosed in F1.5a.

Please explain (column 5)

• Provide any relevant information to understand how the percentages were calculated, e.g., in case you have disclosed different forms of the commodity in F1.5.
• For production/consumption volume of unknown origin, provide an explanation on the strategy adopted to assure this volume is not associated with deforestation.
• In the case of forest risk countries, if you are unable to disclose data for the state or equivalent jurisdiction, provide an explanation as to why this is the case.
• Specify which biome or ecoregion the state is located in, e.g. Cerrado biome or Amazon biome.

Explanation of terms

Forest risk country: for the purposes of this questionnaire, a forest risk country is one of the following tropical and subtropical countries selected based on current and/or future deforestation risk (based on GCP, 2019; WWF, 2015 & TFA, 2019)

• Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Viet Nam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Example response

(F1.5c) Why is your organization not disclosing production and/or consumption data for your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Data available, but not disclosing’ in response to F1.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This information provides context to investors and other data users about the primary reason why organizations are not disclosing data on the production and/or the consumption of their disclosed forest risk commodity(ies).

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the option that best describes the primary reason for why your organization cannot disclose data.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Please explain (column 3)

• If ‘Only partial scoping of forest risk commodities in products/supply chain completed’ is selected in column ‘Primary reason’, inform which areas of production and/or consumption were scoped and why these were chosen; indicate when the full scoping will be completed, and method used for scoping commodities.
• If ‘Data considered confidential’ is selected in column ‘Primary reason’, provide a detailed explanation of why this data is considered confidential and indicate whether this information will be made public/non-confidential in the future.
• If ‘Other, please specify’ is selected in column ‘Primary reason’, explain why your organization chose not to disclose this information.
• If applicable, include the percentage of data not disclosed from your total production/consumption.

(F1.5d) Why is production and/or consumption data not available for your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Data not available’ in response to F1.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This information provides context to investors and other data users about the primary reason why organizations do not collect data on the production and/or the consumption of their disclosed forest risk commodity(ies) and/or on any future plans to collect these data.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the option that best describes the primary reason for which data is not available for a specific commodity.

Please explain (column 3)

• Outline the challenges your organization faces to collect and provide data.
• Provide details on your organization’s plans for implementing data collection, including:

- When data will be collected
- Which methods/strategy will be used
- Specify the stages of your value chain from which you will collect these data (i.e., direct operations, supply chain and or other parts of your value chain)
- Specify any exclusions

(F1.5e) How does your organisation produce or consume biofuel derived from palm oil?

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Palm Oil' in response to F0.4

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question allows data users to understand the relevancy of palm oil derived biofuels to your organization.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5. Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. You are able to add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

Does your organization produce or consume biofuel derived from palm oil? (column 1)

• Your selection in this column will prompt the remaining columns in this question.

Data type (column 2)

• Provide your production and consumption data separately by adding a new row.

Volume produced/consumed (column 3)

• If your organization is both a producer and consumer of biofuel derived from palm oil, provide the volumes in separate rows.

Metric (column 4)

• Ensure that you select a metric that is suitable to the form(s) of biofuel you are disclosing.
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Country/Area of origin (column 5)

• For each of your selected data types, select the countries/areas of origin of the palm oil used for biofuels. This information refers to the country/area in which the raw material for your biofuels are grown or harvested, and not the location where it is processed or turned into manufactured goods.
• Select all applicable countries/regions of origin.
• Select 'Unknown origin' in addition to countries/areas if you are partially unsure about the country/area of origin of part of the disclosed commodity(ies).

State or equivalent jurisdiction (column 6)

• State the first-level administrative division within that country from which your production/consumption volume originates. For instance, this could be a federal state, a department, or a province (e.g. the province of Jambi in Indonesia).
• If your production/consumption volume originates from more than one state (or equivalent jurisdiction) in the same country, please add one row for each state.
• If your organization has no information on the state (or equivalent jurisdiction) where your biofuel derived from palm oil is coming from, select ‘Don’t know’ and provide an explanation in column 9 (Comment).
• If your organization has the information but is not disclosing, select ‘Not disclosing’ and provide an explanation in column 9 (Comment).

% of total production/consumption volume (column 7)

• Indicate the percentage of the total production/consumption volume of biofuel derived from palm oil that is sourced from the jurisdiction reported in column 6.
• If you have selected "Don't know" or "Not disclosing" in column 6 (State or equivalent), the percentage should relate to the country selection in column 5 (i.e. with no breakdown by subnational jurisdiction).
• If you have selected “Any other countries/areas” or “Unknown origin” in column 5, then disclose the percentage of your production/consumption volume that falls into these categories.
• Total production/consumption volume refers to the sum of all volumes (production volume + consumption volume).
• Percentages smaller than 0.01% must be rounded up to 0.01%. (the smaller value may be provided in column 9).
• It is expected that the percentages disclosed will sum up to 100% (+/- 5%), covering the totality of the volumes disclosed in column 3.

Does the source of your organization's biofuel material come from smallholders? (column 8)

• Indicate whether the raw material that is used to make the biofuel derived from palm oil used by your organization is sourced from smallholders.

Comment (column 9) (optional)

• If you select "Don't know" or "Not disclosing" in column 6 (state or equivalent jurisdiction), provide a brief explanation of why this is the case.
• If you have had to round the percentage disclosed in column 7 up to 0.01%, the smaller value may be disclosed here.

Detrimental impacts on your business

(F1.6) Has your organization experienced any detrimental forests-related impacts?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Past impacts are useful indicators of inherent risks that your organization may be exposed to. The response to this question presents a picture of how issues related to forest risk commodities may have detrimentally impacted your business. Note that in this question CDP asks about events in the past that have impacted your business and not those inherent risks or those that have impacted the environment. The magnitude of impact and the total financial impact figure, data points requested in the follow-on questions, are important for investors and other data users to understand the context within which the impact(s) affected your business. Your organization’s response strategy to past impacts informs CDP data users how you are attempting to prevent future impacts and build resilience.

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes
• No

Requested content

General

• Please select ‘Yes’ if you have experienced any detrimental impact(s) in your business operations, revenue or expenditure in the reporting year that was related to the production and/or procurement of deforestation risk commodities.
• For businesses, detrimental impacts from the production or procurement of forest risk commodities may result in direct financial impacts such as production or revenue loss, however this may also result in other impacts, such as loss of a license to operate, regulatory implications or brand damage.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related impact: the effects on an organization of a physical, regulatory, reputational or technological challenge, event or action related directly or indirectly to forests.

(F1.6a) Describe the forests-related detrimental impacts experienced by your organization, your response, and the total financial impact.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F1.6

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Past impacts are useful indicators of inherent risks that your organization may be exposed to. The response to this question presents a picture of how issues related to forest risk commodities may have detrimentally impacted your business. Note that in this question CDP asks about events in the past that have impacted your business and not those inherent risks or those that have impacted the environment.

The magnitude of impact and the total financial impact figure are important for investors and other data users to understand the context within which the impact(s) affected your business. Your organization’s response strategy to past impacts informs CDP data users on how you are attempting to prevent future impacts and build resilience.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 9: Access to remedy and environmental restoration

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Primary impact driver (column 3)

Primary impact (column 4)

Primary response (column 6)

Requested content

General

• Add a new row for each commodity and its associated detrimental impact(s) on your organizations’ business operations, revenue or expenditure during the reporting year.

Impact driver type (column 2)

• The driver of the impact is the factor/ driving force causing the impact reported. Impact drivers are either physical (e.g. weather extreme events), or transitional, i.e., regulatory, reputational and markets, and technological.
• Each selected impact driver type determines the options for the primary impact driver in column 3.
• Add a new row for each impact driver type if you have more than one per commodity.

Primary impact driver (column 3)

• Select the option that best describes your primary impact driver, i.e., that is closely related with or largest responsible for your detrimental impact.
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other… driver, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Primary impact (column 4)

• Select the option that best describes your primary detrimental impact.
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Description of impact (column 5)

• Explain how the impact was detrimental to your organization, by indicating the scale of the impact. Include details as to the length of time your business was impacted, and the parts of your business affected.

Primary response (column 6)

• Select the option that best describes your primary response to the impact disclosed in column 4 (Primary impact).
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Total financial impact (column 7)

• Please disclose the financial figure associated with your disclosed impact. This figure should reflect the same currency indicated by your organization in F0.3.
• Please include the total financial cost including those caused by your organization’s response to the impact. If the total financial cost is not available, provide an estimate.
• If you are unable to provide an estimated figure, provide an explanation in column 8 (Description of….)

Description of response (column 8)

• Use this section to provide details on your organization’s response to the identified detrimental impact, detailing your approach, stakeholders involved and outcomes to date. Include an explanation of the methodology used to calculate the reported financial figure.
• If you were unable to provide a financial figure in column 7, please provide an explanation.

Explanation of terms

• Afforestation: establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land that, until then, was not classified as forest, which implies a transformation of land use from non-forest to forest. (FAO, 2015).
• No-conversion (" or conversion-free"): commodity production, sourcing, or financial investments in commodities that do not cause or contribute to the conversion of natural ecosystems (AFi, 2019).
• Due diligence: a risk management process implemented by a company to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how it addresses environmental and social risks and impacts in either its direct operations and supply chains, or in its investments (adapted from AFi, 2019).
• Ecosystem services: the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. The concept "ecosystem goods and services" is synonymous with ecosystem services (TEEB, 2010).
• Forests-related impact: the effects on an organization of a physical, regulatory, reputational or technological challenge, event or action related directly or indirectly to forests.
• Impact driver: this is the factor/driving force causing the impact reported. Impact drivers are either physical (e.g. extreme weather events), or transitional, i.e., regulatory, reputational, markets, and technological.
• Landscape level approach: refers to actions taken over a large spatial scale for allocating and managing land, under conflicting use (e.g., agriculture, mining, urban, forests), to efficiently address social, economic and environmental issues (DEFRA, 2011; Sayer et al. 2013).
• Multi-stakeholder initiative: an initiative that is governed by different stakeholder groups, including private sector companies and their associations, civil society organizations (e.g., environmental and social NGOs) and possibly farmer organizations, government organizations and knowledge providers (SAI Platform, 2015).
• Reforestation: re-establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land classified as forest (FAO, 2015).
• Restoration: is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (SER, 2002).
• Sustainable forest management: the process of managing a forest for achieving the continuous production of desired forest products and services without reducing its inherent values and future productivity, avoiding undesirable social-environmental effects (adapted from ITTO).
• Traceability: the ability to follow a product or its components through stages of the supply chain (e.g. production, processing, manufacturing, and distribution) (AFi, 2019).

Example response

(F1.7) Indicate whether you have assessed the deforestation or conversion footprint for your disclosed commodities over the past 5 years, or since a specified cutoff date, and provide details.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Processor’, ‘Trader’, 'Manufacturer', or ‘Retailer’ in response to F0.4.

Change from last year

New question

Rationale

Disclosure of the extent to which your business monitors its deforestation or conversion footprint within the supply chain provides investors and other data users with an understanding of the scale of your forest-related impacts. Organizations are able to demonstrate transparency and awareness of the relationship between forests and their business activities.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Requested content

Forest risk commodity (column 1)

• Add a row for each of your disclosed commodity(ies) where you are assessing your deforestation/conversion footprint

Have you monitored or estimated your deforestation/conversion footprint? (column 2)

• Select the option that best represents whether your organisation monitors or estimates its deforestation/conversion footprint, or if you don’t and whether you plan to do so.

Coverage (column 3)

• This column is presented only if “Yes” is selected in column 2.
• Indicate if the data provided covers your deforestation/conversion footprint relating to all of the production and/or consumption volumes of the commodity, apart from exclusions already described in F0.5 and F0.5a.

Reporting deforestation/conversion since a specified cutoff date or during the last five years (column 4)

• This column is presented only if “Yes” is selected in column 2.
• Select the options that best represent the timeframe for which you are reporting your deforestation/conversion footprint.
• If you are reporting deforestation/conversion for more than one of the options in this column, you will need to add a new row for each timeframe selection.
• If you select ‘Since a specified cutoff date, please specify year’, provide a label for reporting deforestation/conversion since a specified cutoff date.
• If you select “Other, please specify”, provide a label for reporting deforestation/conversion

Known or estimated deforestation/conversion footprint (hectares) (column 5)

• This column is presented only if “Yes” is selected in column 2.
• Provide the known or estimated deforestation/conversion footprint that was driven by the commodity being disclosed upon within the selected timeframe.
• Zero (0) should only be used for reporting zero hectares and not for an absence of data.

Describe methods and data sources used to monitor or estimate deforestation/conversion footprint (column 6)

• This column is presented only if “Yes” is selected in column 2.
• Describe the procedure used to monitor or estimate your deforestation/conversion footprint.
• Indicate how often you monitor your deforestation/conversion footprint.

Explanation of terms

• Conversion: human-induced change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, and/or function.

- Deforestation is one form of conversion (conversion of natural forests)

- Conversion includes severe degradation or the introduction of management practices that result in a substantial and sustained change in the ecosystem’s former species composition, structure, or function.

- Change to natural ecosystems that meets this definition is considered to be conversion regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Cutoff date: the date after which deforestation or conversion renders a given area or production unit non-compliant with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, respectively (AFi, 2019).
• Deforestation: loss of natural forest as a result of the following human activities: i) conversion to agriculture or other non-forest land use; ii) conversion to a tree plantation; or iii) severe and sustained degradation.

- Severe degradation constitutes deforestation even if the land is not subsequently used for non-forest land use.

- Loss of natural forest that meets this definition is considered to be deforestation regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted.

- Deforestation signifies gross deforestation of a natural forest where "gross" is used in the sense of "total; aggregate; without deduction for reforestation or other offsets" (adapted from AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• For information on whether the conversion of different land types would violate no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, please see AFi’s Operational Guidance on Applying the Definitions Related to Deforestation, Conversion, and Protection of Ecosystems.
• A useful diagram of what constitutes conversion of natural forest into planted area can be found here.
• For further info on monitoring or estimating your deforestation/conversion, see AFI's Guidance on Monitoring and Verification (2019).

F2 Procedures

Module Overview

This module requests information about the procedures that organizations have in place to manage issues salient to their sector and to understand inherent risk exposure. These management procedures are considered important to addressing forests-related issues - independent of a company’s own perception or an assessment of any associated net risk for their company. This is why CDP asks companies to answer these questions before disclosing whether they consider themselves exposed to substantive forests-related risks and what those risks are.

This information provides data users with confidence that the risks you disclose in Module 3 (Risks and opportunities) are comprehensive.

Key changes

• Modified question (F2.1a)
  • The question structure has been modified to allow risk procedures for various stages of the supply chain to be reported together rather than separately.
  • The response options for ‘Tools and methods used’ have been revised.
  • F2.1b and F2.1c have been merged into F2.1a through the addition of two columns on issues and stakeholders considered in the risk assessment.
• Removed questions: F2.1b and F2.1c (2021) on risk assessment procedures
  • As a result some question numbers have changed: F2.1d (2021) to F2.1b (2022)
• Additional guidance: A definition of 'Regulator' has been added in F2.1a.
• New questions F2.2, F2.2a: asks whether your organization maps its supply chain
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F2. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Risk identification and assessment

(F2.1) Does your organization undertake a forests-related risk assessment?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

It is important to provide details of your procedures to forests-related risk assessment so that investors and other CDP data users can consider the thoroughness of your company’s understanding of its forests-related risk exposure.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes, forests-related risks are assessed
• No, forests-related risks are not assessed

Requested content

General

• If you have completed a risk assessment for at least part of your direct operations and/or other parts of your value chain, as well as for at least one of your disclosed commodities, select “Yes”.
• If your organization has an integrated environmental risk assessment that considers any inherent forests-related risks among other environmental issues, select "Yes".
• Only select "No" if you have not conducted any form of risk assessment that included forests-related issues.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related: for the purposes of the forests questionnaire, this refers to deforestation and forest degradation as well as conversion and degradation of other natural ecosystems.

(F2.1a) Select the options that best describe your procedures for identifying and assessing forests-related risks.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F2.1.

Change from last year

Modified question; Additional guidance

Rationale

It is important to describe your forests-related risk assessment coverage and content so that investors and other data users can understand and assess the thoroughness of your risk assessment processes and whether your adopted risk assessment procedures are appropriate for the context and risks. Reporting the frequency and horizon of your risk assessments helps demonstrate whether these aspects of your assessments are appropriate for the context and risks reported. To understand the comprehensiveness of the risk assessment, data users need to know which contextual issues and stakeholders inform your company’s understanding of forests-related risks, which are considered relevant and why.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

Requested content

General

• This question examines your broader risk assessment procedures across your whole value chain, i.e. your operations, supply chain and other parts of your value chain.

Value chain stage (column 2)

• State which parts of your business are included in your risk assessment for that specific commodity. You may select multiple options in this column to indicate, for example, that your risk assessment covers all of your direct operations and supply chain.

Coverage (column 3)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• If certain elements of your direct operations, supply chain or other parts of your value chain are excluded from the risk assessment process, please select ‘Partial’ and explain your reasons in column 8 (Please explain).

Risk assessment procedure (column 4)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• Select the option that best describes how your organization assesses forests-related risks associated with each of your disclosed commodity(ies). If multiple approaches apply, select the main or primary approach taken by your organization.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select 'Other, please specify' and a text box will appear for you to add a label that describes your approach. You’ll be able provide further details on your approach in column 8 (Please explain).

How far into the future are risks considered? (column 6)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• This column refers to for how many years into the future your risk assessment considers forests-related issues.
• Provide a brief explanation of why this time horizon was selected in column 10 (Please explain).

Tools and methods used (column 7)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• Select the options that best represent the tools and methods used by your organization to identify and assess forest-related risks.
• If none of the available options are suitable, or you want to include additional tools/methods, select "Other, please specify" and provide a label that describes the tools/methods used.

Issues considered (column 8)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• Select all the issues that are considered in your organization's forest-related risk assessment(s).
• If you select "Other, please specify" provide a label for the issue you consider.

Stakeholders considered (column 9)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• Select all the stakeholders that most accurately reflect the stakeholders considered as part of your risk assessment.
• If you select "Other, please specify" provide a label for the stakeholder you consider.

Please explain (column 10)

• This column will not be presented if "Not applicable" is selected in column 2.
• Provide a brief explanation of the risk assessment procedure, frequency and time horizon selected.
• Provide details of the tool/methods selected in column 7 (Tools and methods), including why you have chosen them and how they have been used to assist your risk assessment on forests-related issues.
• Provide a brief description of the issue you consider most significant to your organization from those selected in column 8, and how you have assessed this issue including any selections made in column 7 that are relevant to the issue.
• If ‘Partial’ was selected in column 3 (Coverage), and more than one option was selected in column 2 (Value chain stage), specify which stage(s) of your value chain is only partially covered, provide details on the level of coverage and how the coverage is determined, e.g. which tiers of the supply chain.
• If “Not applicable” is selected in column 2, present a detailed explanation on why your organization does not undertake a forests-related risk assessment for the forest-risk commodity.

Explanation of terms

• Enterprise risk management: an integrated and joined-up approach to managing risk across an organization and its extended networks (Institute of Risk Management).
• Leakage Market: a market in which capital, income or commodities are diverted to non-compliant activities. For example: Southeast Asian palm oil producers facing a restrictive NDPE market, may move towards biofuel production due to weaker sustainability restrictions, creating potential for environmental damage and reputation risk (source: CRR, 2020).
• Risk management: involves understanding, analyzing and addressing risk to make sure organizations achieve their objectives. This must be proportionate to the complexity and type of organization (Institute of Risk Management).
• Regulator: a body with a statutory authority to enforce laws, standards and other legal regulations. They are appointed by government, but can operate independently of it.

Example response

(F2.1b) Why does your organization not undertake a forests-related risk assessment?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘No, forests-related risks are not assessed' in response to F2.1.

Change from last year

No change (2021 F2.1d)

Rationale

Because a thorough risk assessment is integral to effectively identifying and addressing forests-related risks, data users want an understanding why your company does not carry out such assessments, as well as any plans to do so in the future. Without undertaking a risk assessment, organizations may be unable to determine the best ways to prepare for future uncertainties and liabilities. Organizations may have many reasons for not undertaking risk assessments, and data users are interested in learning more about the planning processes and contexts of each company.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• In this question, it is possible to disclose the drop-down that best describes why your organization has not conducted a forests-related risk assessment. An organization should provide a further explanation in column 3 (Please explain) as to why it has not carried out a risk assessment or if it is planning to do so.

Primary reason for not having a process (column 2)

• For any commodities for which you selected ‘No, forests-related risks are not assessed' in F2.1, choose the option from the drop-down menu that best describes the reason why you do not have a process in place. If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.
• If a company is in the process of compiling a forests-related risk assessment or planning to introduce a risk assessment in the near future, then select the appropriate drop-down. Only include these options if your organization has already developed plans or has agreed to a future evaluation.

Please explain (column 3)

• Use this column to provide any additional information on the drop-down selected in column 2 (Primary reason for…), in particular if a company has selected ‘judged to be unimportant’ then a clear explanation should be provided as to why this is the case.

Value chain mapping

(F2.2) For each of your disclosed commodity(ies), has your organization mapped its value chains?

Change from last year

New question

Rationale

Knowledge of the actors in a value chain is crucial for understanding risk exposure and opportunities related to deforestation and land conversion. Mapping the value chain is an important first step in determining and engaging on any potential environmental impacts resulting from commodity production.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and process to drive effective implementation

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 10: Collaboration for landscape and sectoral sustainability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

Requested content

General

• Complete one row for each commodity selected in F0.4.
• This question asks whether your organization has mapped its value chain including upstream (e.g. suppliers), own operations, and downstream (e.g. customers).
• Note that 'value chain mapping' (the process of identifying stakeholders within your value chain, including where they operate and how they relate to each other) is distinct from 'traceability' (the ability to follow products through stages of the value chain - see F6.2).

Value chain mapping (column 2)

• Select the option that best describes the value chain mapping for each commodity. Only select “Yes, we have mapped the entire value chain” if your organization has mapped own operations, direct and indirect suppliers, and customers.
• For any "yes" option you will be given the opportunity to provide more details on your value chain mapping in the subsequent question.

Primary reason for not mapping your value chain (column 3)

• This column is presented only if “No…” option is selected in column 2.
• Select the option that best describes the primary reason why your organization does not map its value chain.
• If you select “Other, please specify”, provide a label for primary reason for not mapping your value chain.

Explain why your organization does not map its value chain and outline any plans to introduce it (column 4)

• This column is presented only if “No…” option is selected in column 2.
• Briefly state why your organization does not map its value chain or describe any plans to do so in the future.

Explanation of terms

• Value chain mapping: Value chain mapping is the process of identifying actors in the value chain and, where they operate, and understanding the relationships among them. (Adapted from The Accountability Framework)

Additional information

• For more information on how the concepts of 'value chain mapping' and 'traceability' work together, refer to AFi's 'Operational Guidance on Supply Chain Management' (AFi, 2019).

(F2.2a) Provide details of your organization’s value chain mapping for its disclosed commodity(ies).

Question dependencies

This question only appears if any Yes-option is selected in F2.2.

Change from last year

New question

Rationale

Transparency of forests risk commodity suppliers and where they operate is good practice. This type of data is increasingly being requested by investors, civil society, and other stakeholders in the assessment and verification of the environmental impacts of commodity production. This facilitates accountability for, and strengthens credibility of, the organization’s sustainability commitments.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and process to drive effective implementation

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 10: Collaboration for landscape and sectoral sustainability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Requested content

General

• If your organization uses multiple tools/processes to map its value chain, add a row for each.

Scope of value chain mapping (column 2)

• If you select “Other, please specify”, provide a label for scope of value chain mapping.

% of total suppliers covered within selected tier(s) (column 3)

• This column appears if either smallholder or supplier options have been selected in column 2.
• Within your total selection of smallholder/supplier tier options in column 2, provide an estimated percentage of your total suppliers covered by the mapping.

Description of mapping process and coverage (column 4)

• This column appears if either smallholder or supplier options have been selected in column 2.
• Provide a description of your organization’s mapping process, including what type of information has been collected and tools and methods used.
• If less than 100% coverage is selected in column 3, provide breakdown of the percentage coverage for each supplier tier or smallholder option selected in column 2.
• Provide an explanation of any potential exclusions in your value chain mapping.

Your own production and primary processing sites: attach a list of facility names and locations (optional) (column 5)

• This request is optional. You may provide a list of production and primary processing sites. Examples of information useful to data users are names, and locations including country, region, longitude and latitude (alternatively, geo-referenced maps, addresses generating locations on google maps, or shapefiles).
• Also include certification status if relevant.
• Palm oil mill lists should use the conventions of the universal mill list. See Universal Mill List: A Standardized Methodology for Creating a Global Database of Palm Oil Mills | World Resources Institute (WRI)

Your suppliers' production and primary processing sites: attach a list of facility names and locations (optional) (column 6)

• This request is optional. You may provide a list of your suppliers' production and primary processing sites. Examples of information useful to data users are names, and locations including country, region, longitude and latitude (alternatively, geo-referenced maps, addresses generating locations on google maps, or shapefiles).
• Also include certification status if relevant.
• Palm oil mill lists should use the conventions of the universal mill list. See Universal Mill List: A Standardized Methodology for Creating a Global Database of Palm Oil Mills | World Resources Institute (WRI)

F3 Risks and opportunities

Module Overview

This module allows organizations to show that they have a clear awareness of the extent to which they are exposed to inherent forests-related risks in their direct operations and other parts of their value chain.

CDP asks organizations to report substantive forests-related risks, the potential impacts of those risks and share details of their associated response strategies.

We also invite organizations to share any forests-related operational or market opportunities being realized that could substantively benefit their business.

Discloser note

• Providing information about inherent risk exposure rather than residual risk allows data-users to consider the potential impact and the appropriateness of the organization’s response.
• CDP asks about risks anywhere in your business that are substantive at the corporate level (not those that are significant only at the facility level, for example). We wish only to know about risks that have the ability to impact the business financially, strategically, or otherwise at the corporate level.
• You may wish to consult with your financial, legal, and/or compliance departments for advice on your company’s general approach to the provision of forward-looking statements and information concerning risks.

Key changes

• New response options (F3.1b columns 2, 5 and 16, F3.2a column 4): The physical risk type has been separated into 'Acute physical' and 'Chronic physical', and the primary risk drivers have been updated accordingly.
• Modified guidance: F3.1b guidance on newly requested ‘acute physical’ and ‘chronic physical’ risk has been added.
• Additional guidance: A definition of 'Forest management unit' has been added in F3.1b.
• Additional guidance: A definition of 'Nature-based solutions' has been added in F3.2a.
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F3. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Risks

(F3.1) Have you identified any inherent forests-related risks with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Data users wish to know whether your organization has knowledge of forests-related risks across any part of its value chain that are substantive at the corporate level. This information is critical for guiding investments as well as corporate actions to improve business resilience and forests stewardship. Note that CDP only requests information on risks that have the potential to substantively impact your business at the corporate level.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: responsible consumption and production

AFi

Core Principle 5. Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Please indicate if, as a result of your risk assessment, you have identified any inherent forests-related risks, and in which part of your value chain the risk resides; or select ‘No’ and explain why not in F3.1c.
• For the purposes of this response, the risks considered should only be those which:

- Have the potential to pose substantive financial or strategic impacts (as per your company-specific definition of “substantive”);
- Have the potential to pose a substantive risk at the corporate level, and not simply at the asset/business unit/geographic level at which they may occur are inherent (the risk that exists in the absence of controls, i.e., not taking into account any potential mitigation or management measures that could be implemented).

• These risks may have the potential to impact on your organization either now or in the future.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related impact: the effects on an organization of a physical, regulatory, reputational or technological challenge, event or action related directly or indirectly to forests.
• Forests-related risk: the likelihood, over a specific time, of an organization experiencing an impact caused directly or indirectly by deforestation/forest degradation (e.g., fines, loss of license to operate, supply chain disruption, loss of revenue, etc.). The extent of a risk is a function of its likelihood and the severity of the potential impact. The severity of potential impact itself depends on the intensity of the challenge posed by the risk, as well as the vulnerability of the organization.
• Inherent risk: the risk that exists in the absence of controls, i.e., not taking into account any potential mitigation or management measures that could be implemented.
• Substantive impact: an impact that has a considerable or relatively significant effect on an organization at the corporate level. This could include operational, financial or strategic effects that undermine the entire business or part of the business.

(F3.1a) How does your organization define substantive financial or strategic impact on your business?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Explaining your organization’s threshold for including risk data in this request provides critical context for CDP data users. What is considered as a substantive impact for a business will be different for each responding organization, so before proceeding with any further questions in this module, it is important that you explain how your organization defines a substantive impact at the corporate level.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

This is an open text question with limit of 5,000 characters.

Requested content

General

• What constitutes a substantive impact will vary between companies. For example, a 1% reduction in profits will have different effects on different companies depending on their respective profit margins. Companies are therefore asked to determine substantive in the way that they would use for their business decision-making. For example, a substantive impact of relatively high magnitude could occur because of a large number for any one of these aspects, or a small number in all three combining to create a larger impact:

- the proportion of business units affected;
- the extension of the impact on those business units;
- the dependency of the organization on that unit;
- the potential for shareholder or customer concern.

• Describe, in detail, how your organization defines ‘substantive impact’ on your business at the corporate level, including aspects as operations, revenue or expenditure, asses & liabilities, and capital allocation.
• The description of your definition should make clear the thresholds for:

- the magnitude;
- probability to occur;
- frequency of the impact;
-and how they are applied together.

• Include details of any metrics used and report how often these metrics are reviewed and updated.
• Please indicate if your definition/thresholds/metrics relate to direct operations and/or other parts of your value chain.
• Note: in this question, we are not requesting:

- information about what is a substantive impact at the level of facilities, business units, etc.;
- details of the risks your organization is exposed to.

(F3.1b) For your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies), provide details of risks identified with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business, and your response to those risks.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F3.1.

Change from last year

Minor change; Modified guidance

Rationale

Your response to this question allows CDP data users to understand:

• The inherent risk(s) that your organization is exposed to because of drivers associated with the production, consumption and/or trade of forest risk commodities;
• The estimated potential impact of the risk(s) at the corporate level; and
• Your response strategy to address the risk(s).

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Geographical scale (column 3)

Primary risk driver (column 5)

Primary potential impact (column 6)

Primary response to risk (column 16)

Requested content

General

• Please disclose the main risks your organization has identified to its direct operations and/or other parts of its value chain. For example, risks may arise from decreasing availability and/or quality of forest risk commodities due to changes in the physical parameters. These risks could lead to increased costs or disrupted operations and/or supply for your organization. Therefore, these risks may have the potential to generate a substantive financial impact in your business operations, revenue or expenditure.
• Provide information regarding each of your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies).

Type of risk (column 2)

• Select the option that best represents your type of risk, having the following in mind:

- Acute physical risks may arise from short-term, specific events such as heat waves and wildfires;
- Chronic physical risk may arise from longer-term events and processes such as temperature variability, increased ecosystem vulnerability and heat stress;
- Regulatory risks arise from current and/or expected city, state, regional, national or global governmental policy related to deforestation, e.g., legislation, commitments, trade relationships;
- Reputational risks include changing consumer behavior, negative media coverage, and consumer market campaigns;
- Technological changes aiming to reduce deforestation risks may cause an impact on the value of a service or product.

Primary risk driver (column 5)

• Select the option that best describes your primary risk driver, i.e., the main factor responsible for your potential impact.
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’.

Company-specific description (column 7)

• Provide further contextual information on the risk driver selected in column 5 (Primary risk driver), including more detail on its nature and location.
• Include a company-specific description of how the risk driver will impact your organization, including the nature of any secondary impacts.

Timeframe (column 8)

• Select the timeframe in which the inherent risks would be most likely to materialize. It is acknowledged that there is likely to be a higher degree of uncertainty associated with long-term risks.

Magnitude of potential impact (column 9)

• This refers to the extent to which the impact, if it occurred, would affect your business. You should consider the business as a whole. The potential magnitude of the impact can be a combination of the scale of the damage and also your organization’s exposure to being damaged.
• Magnitude of impact will vary from company to company. As it is not possible for CDP to accurately define terms for magnitude of impact, companies are asked to determine and report magnitude using a qualitative 5 point scale from High to Low.
• Factors to consider when classifying the magnitude of the impact on your organization include:

- The proportion of business units affected;
- The size of the impact on those business units;
- The dependency of the company on those units;
- The potential for shareholder or customer concern; and
- An impact could have a relatively high magnitude for the company as a whole because of a large effect in one of the aspects above or small effects in all four combining to create a larger impact.

• If the financial impact has not been assessed by your organization, please select ‘Unknown’.

Likelihood (column 10)

• Likelihood refers to the probability of the inherent impact occurring within the timeframe reported in column 8 (Timeframe).
• In the case of an inherent risk, the probability of the impact might be similar to the probability of the risk event (the risk driver) itself.
• The terms used to describe likelihood are taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report and are consistent across all CDP information requests. As a guide to quantifying likelihood on a % basis, we suggest:

- Virtually certain (greater than 99% probability);
- Very likely (greater than 90% probability);
- Likely (greater than 66% probability);
- More likely than not (greater than 50% probability);
- About as likely as not (between 33% and 66% probability);
- Unlikely (less than 33% probability);
- Very unlikely (less than 10%);
- Exceptionally unlikely (less than 1% probability);
- Unknown.

• For example, you may consider your organization to be potentially exposed to a risk of ‘forest fires’ in the next ‘4-6 years’ which would cause an impact of high magnitude - but the risk is not considered very likely to materialize. In this case, you would select ‘unlikely’. Alternatively, if the risk is related to a piece of new legislation which has already been drafted, the likelihood of the impact associated with that risk occurring will be relatively high and you would select ‘very likely’.

Are you able to provide a potential financial impact figure? (column 11)

• Your selection will determine whether column 12 or columns 13 and 14 will be presented.
• It is acknowledged that these figures will be estimates.
• If you are unable to provide a figure for a financial impact, you may use column 15 (‘Explanation of financial impact’) to provide a description of the impact in relative terms; for example, as a percentage relative to a stated or publicly available figure, or give a qualitative estimate of the financial impact.

Potential financial impact figure (currency) (column 12)

• Provide a single figure for the inherent financial impact of the risk (before taking into consideration any controls you may have in place to mitigate the impact). This figure should be in the same currency that you selected in question F0.3 for all financial information disclosed throughout your response.

Potential financial impact figure - minimum/maximum (currency) (column 13, 14)

• Provide the estimated range for the inherent financial impact (before taking into consideration any controls you may have in place to mitigate the impacts). This figure should be in the same currency that you selected in question F0.3 for all financial information disclosed throughout your response.
• Potential financial impact – minimum (currency) use this field to report the lower point of your estimated financial impact associated with the risk. For example, if the range is from US $5,000 to $50,000, ‘5,000’ should be reported here.
• Potential financial impact – maximum (currency) use this field to report the upper point of your estimated financial impact associated with the risk. For example, if the range is from US $5,000 to $50,000, ‘50,000’ should be reported here.

Explanation of financial impact (column 15)

• Use this field to explain the figure(s) provided in ‘Potential financial impact figure’ (columns 12, 13, 14).
• Describe how you arrived at this figure (or range), including:

- What approach was employed to calculate the figure
- Any assumptions the figure is dependent on
- The likely timescale for the financial impact.

• If ‘No, we do not have this figure’ was selected in column 11, use this column to provide a description of the financial impact in relative terms (for example as a percentage relative to a stated or publicly available figure) or give a qualitative estimate of the financial impact. Otherwise, if you have no information about the financial impact, please state ‘The impact has not been quantified financially’.

Primary response to risk (column 16)

• Select the option that best describes your primary response to risk, i.e., the main action taken to mitigate, avoid or control the inherent risk.
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Description of the response (column 17)

• Please provide additional details of your organization’s response to mitigate, control, transfer or accept the risk reported in this row.
• Include the timeframe expected for the response strategy to be implemented. Is the response underway, not yet implemented, or completed? What is the projected progress for lowering residual risk? Note that the residual risk refers to the remaining risk after you implement the response.
• Describe the difference the response has made/is likely to make; including:

- How effective the response has been/is expected to be in preventing the inherent risk driver reoccurring; and
- How effective the response has been/is expected to be improving your organization’s resilience at the asset or corporate level, so preventing future financial, operational or strategic impacts.

Cost of the response (column 18)

• Please enter the quantitative figure or estimated figure that represents the cost of your response. This is the cost of the actions to mitigate, control, transfer or accept the impact. If an estimate is not available, provide an explanation in the “Explanation of the cost of the response” column.
• The currency you selected in F0.3 must apply.

Explanation of the cost of the response (column 19)

• Use this field to explain the figure provided in column 18 (Cost of the response). Please describe how you arrived at this figure, including:

- What approach was taken to consider the cost of your response strategy;
- What methodology was employed to calculate the figure, and if it is an estimate;
- Any assumptions the figure is dependent on; and
- The likely timescale for the cost of response.

• In case no figure is provided in column 18, provide a description of the cost in relative terms or give a qualitative estimate of the cost of the response. Otherwise, if you have no information about the cost of the response, please write “cost of response not quantified at corporate level”.

Explanation of terms

• Afforestation: establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land that, until then, was not classified as forest, which implies a transformation of land use from non-forest to forest. (FAO, 2015).
• Alternative proteins: protein-rich foods that derive from alternative sources to animals (e.g. plant-based or cultured meat).
• Due diligence: a risk management process implemented by a company to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how it addresses environmental and social risks and impacts in either its direct operations and supply chains, or in its investments (adapted from AFi, 2019).
• Ecosystem services: the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. The concept "ecosystem goods and services" is synonymous with ecosystem services (TEEB, 2010).
• Forest management unit: A defined area of manageable land that is either fully or partly covered in forest.
• Forests-related impact: the effects on an organization of a physical, regulatory, reputational or technological challenge, event or action related directly or indirectly to forests.
• Inherent risk: the risk that exists in the absence of controls, i.e., not taking into account any potential mitigation or management measures that could be implemented.
• Impact driver: this is the factor/driving force causing the impact reported. Impact drivers are either physical (e.g. extreme weather events), or transitional, i.e., regulatory, reputational, markets, and technological.
• Landscape level approach: refers to actions taken over a large spatial scale for allocating and managing land, under conflicting use (e.g., agriculture, mining, urban, forests), to efficiently address social, economic and environmental issues (DEFRA, 2011; Sayer et al. 2013).
• Leakage market: A market in which capital, income or commodities are diverted to non-compliant activities (creating a potential for environmental damage and reputational risk, for example).
• Multi-stakeholder initiative: an initiative that is governed by different stakeholder groups, including private sector companies and their associations, civil society organizations (e.g., environmental and social NGOs) and possibly farmer organizations, government organizations and knowledge providers (SAI Platform, 2015).
• Reforestation: re-establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land classified as forest (FAO, 2015).
• Residual risk: the risk remaining after a specific action has been taken to manage the risk.
• Restoration: is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (SER, 2002).
• Sustainable forest management: the process of managing a forest for achieving the continuous production of desired forest products and services without reducing its inherent values and future productivity, avoiding undesirable social-environmental effects (adapted from ITTO).
• Traceability: the ability to follow a product or its components through stages of the supply chain (e.g. production, processing, manufacturing, and distribution) (AFi, 2019).
• Tree plantations: a forest predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding that lacks key elements of natural forest native to an area such as species composition and structural diversity.

-Tree plantations generally have one or a few tree species and tend to include one or more of the following characteristics (i) planted on cleared land, (ii) harvest regularly, (iii) trees are of even ages, (iv) products from plantation are managed and processed for commercial plantation.

-Tree plantations can consist of tree planted for timber, pulp, non-timber forest products (e.g., rubber latex), or ecosystem services (e.g., soil stabilization). Plantation dominantly by agricultural species (e.g., fruits or oil palm) are considered agriculture, not tree plantations (AFi, 2019).

(F3.1c) Why does your organization not consider itself to be exposed to forests-related risks with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'No' in response to F3.1.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

A risk assessment may identify no substantive forests-related risks. This conclusion is important to disclose and explain. Knowing why your organization has concluded that it is not exposed to risks is crucial for investors and other data users to understand your business.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the reason that best describes why you consider your organization to not be exposed to forests-related risks with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business, given your own definition of substantive impact as reported in F3.1a.
• If none of the reasons listed are applicable, select "Other, please specify" and fill in the text box with the appropriate reason.

Please explain (column 3)

• Your explanation should include company-specific details such as:

- Your evaluation process, in line with the risk identification and assessment process described in your answer to question F2.1a-c (if applicable);
- why there are no forests-related risks that may cause a substantive impact to your organization; and
- specific reasons why you have not yet conducted a risk assessment or indicate when the evaluation will be complete.

Opportunities

(F3.2) Have you identified any forests-related opportunities with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Changes in the quality and availability of forest risk commodities, as well as changes in physical, market or regulatory developments related to forests may pose commercial or other opportunities to some organizations. CDP investors and other data users are interested in understanding how companies are approaching and capitalizing on potential forests-related opportunities, especially those with market significance and financial value.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Select "Yes" if:

- you have identified opportunities related to forests issues that could have a substantive financial/strategic impact on your business; and
- are already taking action to pursue them.

• Note that opportunities can relate to those that are:

- Currently being experienced or expected to arise in the future;
- Being managed or newly identified;
- Well understood or with high levels of uncertainty with regard to the likelihood of the opportunity materializing and the extent to which it will impact the business.

• You will be given the opportunity to provide more detail on these opportunities in subsequent questions.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related impact: the effects on an organization of a physical, regulatory, reputational or technological challenge, event or action related directly or indirectly to forests.
• Forests-related opportunity: refers to the potential positive impacts related to the sustainable production/consumption of the forest risk commodities on an organization, e.g. cost savings and access to new markets.

(F3.2a) For your selected forest risk commodity(ies), provide details of the identified opportunities with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F3.2.

Change from last year

Minor change; Additional guidance

Rationale

Changes in the quality and availability of forest risk commodities, as well as changes in physical, market or regulation related to forests may pose commercial or other opportunities to some organizations. CDP investors and other data users are interested in understanding how companies are approaching and capitalizing on potential forests-related opportunities, especially those with market significance and financial value.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Primary forests-related opportunity (column 4)

Requested content

General

• For the purposes of this response, the opportunities identified should only be those which may potentially bring substantive benefits for your business operations, revenue, or expenditure.

Type of opportunity (column 2)

• The type of opportunity selected here determines the options shown in column 4 (Primary forests…).
• If none of the options are suitable, select ‘Other’. In this case, then select ‘Other, please specify’ in column 4 and a text box will open for you to name your opportunity.

Primary forests-related opportunity (column 4)

• Provide any opportunity arising from the sustainable production/procurement of forest risk commodities that has brought or might bring a substantive net benefit to your organization.
• Please report details for the commodities that are of relevance for your business. You may provide more than one opportunity per commodity.

Company-specific description & strategy to realize opportunity (column 5)

• Include details of the opportunity:

- A description of the actual or anticipated positive benefit to your organization, for example, a description of the strategic or financial impact;
- Where in the organization the opportunity originates, e.g. company-wide, to a certain location, geographic scale, business line, or with a particular product or service.

• Describe how you have defined ‘substantive’ impact in the context of an opportunity and reference the definition of substantive impact you gave in F3.1a, if applicable.
• Describe the strategy your organization has in place, or has planned, to take advantage of this opportunity as it relates to your company specifically. Specify whether the action is being implemented currently, or it is being developed. Include a case study or example of the strategy in action if possible.

Estimated timeframe for realization (column 6)

• This refers to the timeframe it will take to realize the opportunity from the current reporting year. Your organization may have already have begun work in previous years to realize this oppportunity.

Magnitude of potential impact (column 7)

• The magnitude describes the extent to which the financial impact would benefit your business. This will consider the entire business; therefore, the magnitude will reflect both the opportunity and the extent to which it applies throughout the organization.
• This is an estimate of the inherent potential financial benefit of the opportunities i.e. before taking into consideration any processes you may have in place to capitalize on the opportunity.
• An assessment of the ‘magnitude’ of the potential financial benefit arising from an absolute value will vary in scale and metric from company to company so it is not possible for CDP to accurately define the terms for magnitude. For example, two companies may report a potential financial impact figure of $500,000. For company A this could represent a 1% increase in profits, but a 15% increase in revenue for company B. Therefore, companies are asked to determine magnitude on a qualitative 5-point scale from High to Low, and give more details in column 11 (Explanation of financial…).
• Factors to consider include:

- The proportion of business units affected;
- The size of the impact on those business units; and
- The potential for shareholder or customer response.

• If the financial impact has not been assessed by your organization, please select ‘Unknown’.

Likelihood (column 8)

• The likelihood refers to the probability of the opportunity to be realized within the timeframe provided in column 6 (Estimate timeframe…). See the description of each likelihood option in the ‘Explanation of terms’.
• This could also be linked to the probability of the source of the opportunity occurring. For example, if the opportunity relates to a type of financial incentive that has already been approved by a national government, the likelihood of that opportunity occurring will be relatively high.

Are you able to provide a potential financial impact figure? (column 9)

• Your selection will determine whether column 10 or columns 11 and 12 will be presented.
• It is acknowledged that these will be estimates and, where possible, assumptions made in arriving at a financial impact figure should be stated in the column 13 (‘Explanation of financial impact’).
• If you are unable to provide a figure for a financial impact, you may use column 13 to provide a description of the impact in relative terms; for example, as a percentage relative to a stated or publicly available figure, or give a qualitative estimate of the financial impact.

Potential financial impact figure (currency) (column 10)

• Provide a single figure for the financial impact of the opportunity. This figure should be in the same currency that you selected in question F0.3 for all financial information disclosed throughout your response.

Potential financial impact figure – minimum/maximum (currency) (columns 11, 12)

• Provide the estimated range for the financial impact of the opportunity. This figure should be in the same currency that you selected in question F0.3 for all financial information disclosed throughout your response.
• Potential financial impact figure – minimum (currency) use this field to report the lower point of your estimated financial impact associated with the opportunity. For example, if the range is from US $5,000 to $50,000, ‘5,000’ should be reported here.
• Potential financial impact figure – maximum (currency) use this field to report the upper point of your estimated financial impact associated with the opportunity. For example, if the range is from US $5,000 to $50,000, ‘50,000’ should be reported here.
• It is acknowledged that these figures will be estimates.

Explanation of financial impact (column 13)

• Use this open text field to explain the figure provided in the “Potential financial impact” (columns 10, 11, 12).
• If ‘No, we do not have this figure’ was selected in column 9, use this column to provide a description of the financial impact in relative terms (for example as a percentage relative to a stated or publicly available figure) or give a qualitative estimate of the financial impact. Otherwise, if you have no information about the financial impact, please state “The impact has not been quantified financially”.

Explanation of terms

• Agricultural expansion in degraded land: is the expansion of agricultural activities such as soy, palm oil, and timber production into degraded lands (e.g. unproductive pasture for cattle ranching), with the objective of avoiding the need of converting forests and/or other natural ecosystems.
• Alternative protein: a general term that covers plant-based and food-technology alternatives to animal protein (FAIRR).
• Climate change adaption: adjustment to climate change's current or expected effects so the consequences to the business and environment are alleviated and beneficial opportunities are realized (adapted from IPCC, 2018).
• Environmental Reserve Quotas or CRA (Brazil only): a Brazilian offsetting mechanism that allows landowners with a deficit of the minimum forest cover requirement to purchase surplus compliance obligations from other landowners, according to the Brazilian Forest Code. Each CRA relates to one hectare of surplus vegetation (WWF, 2015).
• Forestry fund: general term used for financial mechanisms designed to support the conservation and sustainable use of forests, by investing in sustainable forestry practices.
• Green bonds: it is a bond where the proceeds are allocated to environmental projects.
• Increased availability of products with reduced environmental impact (other than certified products): refers to the availability of supply from agricultural production that is not necessarily certified and has reduced environmental impact compared to usual practices. This includes practices such as, Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forest (ICLF) systems, cattle intensification, and organic production.
• Letters of Credit (LCs): under documentary trade finance, a Letter of Credit (LC) is provided for each individual shipment. At the request of the buyer, a bank issues an LC to the assure the suppliers of payment for their shipment (CPSL, 2014).
• Low carbon agriculture: actions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
• Nature-based solutions: actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits (IUCN).
• Price premium: is where higher prices for sustainable agricultural products are paid due to an agreement among stakeholders in the value chain, to pay higher prices for production that is free from deforestation and that follows other environmental and social criteria.
• REDD+: is an approach to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It creates incentives for countries and communities to engage in the sustainable management of forests, conservation of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks (UN-REDD, 2016).
• Sustainable agricultural intensification: refers to the effective use of inputs and the reduction of undesirable outputs (e.g., deforestation, water pollution or greenhouse gas emissions) for greater production yields in order to achieve agricultural sustainability (FCRN).

Additional Information

• For further information on REDD, please consult The Little REDD Book.

(F3.2b) Why does your organization not consider itself to have forests-related opportunities?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'No' or 'Yes, we have identified opportunities but are unable to realize them' in response to F3.2.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Investors and other data users are interested to know whether you are aware of forests-related opportunities. An explanation of why your organization has concluded that it is not exposed to opportunities is crucial for understanding your business strategy.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Provide a primary reason and an explanation for those forest risk commodities for which you have not identified any opportunities or are unable to realize them.

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the reason that best describes why you consider your organization/this commodity to not have forests-related opportunities with the potential to have a substantive financial or strategic impact on your business.
• If none of the reasons listed are applicable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and fill in the text box with the label for the appropriate reason.

Please explain (column 3)

• Your explanation should include details such as your evaluation process, including methods and tools, the timeframe (for concluding or repeating the assessment), or specific reasons why you have not yet conducted an assessment or why there are no forests-related opportunities to your organization associated with a specific commodity.
• If non-substantive opportunities have been identified, you should provide examples and explain why they are not considered to have the potential to generate a substantive impact to your business.Detail your threshold or definition of a substantive opportunity.
• If you have identified opportunities but are unable to realize them, provide a reason for that here.

F4 Governance

Module Overview

This module captures the governance structure of your organization and its governance mechanisms with regards to forests-related issues. It provides data users with an understanding of the organization’s approach to forests-related issues at the board level and below board-level.

A public forests policy, board-level oversight of forests-related issues, and management responsibility to implement decisions taken by the board are considered good practice and an indication of the importance of forests-related issues to the organization. This module also presents a question on the use of performance incentives for senior employees linked to forests-related issues.

Key changes

• New question: F4.1d requests data on board member competency on forests-related issues.
• New response options (F4.5a column 2 and F4.5b column 4) to accommodate recent initiatives by Consumer Goods Forum on Forest Positive
• New and removed response options (F4.6a & F4.6b column 2) for updated initiatives and criteria
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F4. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Board oversight

(F4.1) Is there board-level oversight of forests-related issues within your organization?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Organizations are encouraged to incorporate forests-related issues into their governance procedures. This question will provide information to investors and other data users about the level of commitment of an organization to addressing its forests-related issues. By disclosing information on the responsibilities at the board level, organizations will demonstrate that forests-related issues are given the strategic importance it deserves at this senior level. If forests-related issues do not yet have a board-level oversight, organizations may take this as an opportunity to consider implementing them in the near future.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes
• No

Requested content

General

• In answering this question consider whether the board and/or board committees consider forests-related issues when reviewing and guiding their business strategy, major plans of action, risk management policies, annual budgets, and future financial planning as well as, setting the organization’s performance objectives, monitoring implementation and performance, and overseeing major capital expenditures, acquisitions, and divestitures. If the response to any of these options is true, please select ‘yes’.
• If your organization has board-level oversight for an integrated environmental risk assessment that considers any forests-related risks among other environmental aspects, please select ‘yes’. You’ll be able to provide details in subsequent questions.

Explanation of terms

• Board (or “Board of Directors”): refers to a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Some countries use a two-tiered system where “board” refers to the “supervisory board” while “key executives” refers to the “management board” (TCFD, 2017).
• Forests-related issues: for the purposes of the forests questionnaire, this refers to deforestation and forest degradation as well as conversion and degradation of other natural ecosystems.

(F4.1a) Identify the position(s) of the individual(s) (do not include any names) on the board with responsibility for forests-related issues.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F4.1.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question will provide information to investors and other data users about the level of commitment of an organization to addressing its forests-related issues. By disclosing information on the responsibilities at the board level, organizations will demonstrate that forests-related issues are given the strategic importance it deserves at this senior level.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

General

• Report where in the board the responsibility for oversight of forests-related issues lies. This may be with an individual member of the board or a board level committee, e.g. sustainability committee, risk committee, etc.
• Note that this question is asking about direct responsibility for oversight. In practical terms, this is the person or committee at the top of the chain of command specifically managing information on forests-related issues, making decisions about what the company will do and adapting those decisions based on forests-related information. The CEO is ultimately responsible for everything in the company; however, this question is looking to identify board level responsibility specifically on forests-related issues. While this may be the CEO it is not necessarily the case.

Position of individual (column 1)

• Select the position of the individual on the board responsible for forests-related issues.
• If the position is not listed here, please select the closest match for your organization and provide the position title in column 2 (Please explain).
• If oversight falls jointly to the members of a committee, rather than an individual position, you should select 'Board-level committee' and provide the name of the committee in column 2. Note that this question asks about the position and not about the names of the staff holding these positions. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.
• If there is more than one position, add a new row.

Please explain (column 2)

• Provide a description of the position(s)/committee(s) in the corporate structure and the level of responsibility they have towards forests-related issues; and
• Explain how the responsibilities of the position(s)/committee(s) are related to forests issues.
• Note that this question asks about the position and not about the names of the staff holding these positions. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.
• You can use this field to enter any relevant information.

Explanation of terms

• C-suite: a term used to collectively refer to the most senior executive team.

(F4.1b) Provide further details on the board’s oversight of forests-related issues.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F4.1.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question will provide information to investors and other data users about the level of commitment of an organization to addressing its forests-related issues. By disclosing information on the responsibilities at the board level, organizations will demonstrate that forests-related issues are given the strategic importance it deserves at this senior level.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Provide information on the frequency and nature of board-level oversight of forests-related issues.

Governance mechanisms into which forests-related issues are integrated (column 2)

• Select from the drop-down all of the governance mechanisms in which forests-related issues are included as a scheduled agenda item and presented to the board.
• If you need to add a new mechanism, select ‘Other, please specify’ and fill in the text box with a label it.

Please explain (column 3)

• Describe the governance mechanisms selected in column 2 (Governance..) and how, given the frequency reported in column 1 (Frequency…), these mechanisms contribute to the board's overall oversight of forests-related issues.
• You may also include details such as who briefs the board, and on which matters (e.g. "a report from each Business Head regarding performance against forests targets is reviewed quarterly."). Where possible, please give examples from the reporting year.
• Note that your response to this question may refer to the position of employees relevant to board oversight mechanisms. In this case, do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.

Explanation of terms

• Governance: a system whereby an organization is influenced and controlled based on the interests of shareholders and stakeholders. This involves relationships and communication between management, the board, the shareholders and stakeholders. Governance provides a framework for an organization to set objectives, monitor performance, and evaluate results (TCFD, 2017).
• Monitoring: an ongoing function that uses the systematic collection of data on specific indicators to assess and document the extent to which actions, progress, performance, and compliance are being carried out or achieved (AFi, 2019).

(F4.1c) Why is there no board-level oversight of forests-related issues and what are your plans to change this in the future?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'No' in response to F4.1.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

As CDP investors and other data users are interested in understanding an organization’s awareness and management of forests-related risks at the board-level, this question allows companies to explain why there is no board level oversight and plans to potentially address this gap.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Primary reason (column 1)

• Provide your organization's rationale for not currently having board-level oversight of forests-related issues. While there may be multiple reasons for this, please describe the overarching primary justification.

Please explain (column 3)

• Provide an explanation for why you do not currently have board oversight for forests-related issues or a description of any future plans to implement it in the next two years.

(F4.1d) Does your organization have at least one board member with competence on forests-related issues?

Change from last year

New question

Rationale

Transitioning a business for success in a sustainable future requires related expertise within its decision-making bodies. This capability at board level signals a company’s commitment to understanding and responding to risks, opportunities, and impacts.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

Requested content

General

• Consider whether any kind of skills, experience or expertise assessment of your board is conducted for environmental issues.
• Note that your response to this question may refer to the position of employees relevant to board-level competence. In this case, do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.

Criteria used to evaluate competence on forests-related issues (column 2)

• This column is only presented if “Yes” is selected in column 1.
• Detail the specific criteria used to evaluate the board’s forests-related competence.

Primary reason for no board-level competence on forests-related issues (column 3)

• This column is only presented if one of the “No” options is selected in column 1.
• Select the primary reason as to why there is no board-level competence on forests-related issues in your organization.
• If none of the reasons are applicable to your organization, select “Other, please specify” to provide the primary reason.

Explain why your organization does not have at least one board member with competence on forests-related issues and any plans to address board-level competence in the future (column 4)

• This column is only presented if one of the “No” options is selected in column 1.
• If you selected “Judged to be unimportant, explanation provided” in column 3, explain the criteria used to decide that board-level competence on forests-related issues is not important for your organization.
• Describe any plans to address board-level competence on forests-related issues, such as any measures you have implemented to enhance the forests-related competence of the board.

Management responsibility

(F4.2) Provide the highest management-level position(s) or committee(s) with responsibility for forests-related issues (do not include the names of individuals).

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

While it is most important for a member of the board to have responsibility for forests-related issues, assigning management-level responsibility indicates that the organization is committed to implementing its forests strategy.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

General

• Provide details of the highest management-level position or committee with a responsibility for forests-related issues and implementing aspects of the organization’s forest policy and strategy.
• The responsibility may be for assessing and/or managing forests-related risks and opportunities, among others.

Name of the position(s) and/or committee(s) (column 1)

• Select the best match for the position/committee below board level in your organization, or select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.
• The list includes senior positions that may sometimes but not always be at board level.
• Note that this question asks about the position and not about the names of the staff holding these positions. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.
• Note that positions already listed in F4.1a are also listed here, select one of those only if the individual in the position has effective management responsibility for forests-related issues.
• If there is more than one position/committee with high management-level responsibility and you would like to describe this, you may use the 'Add row' button. This is optional.
• If you are selecting more than one position or committee by adding rows, make sure that the position/committee with the highest management-level of responsibility is in the top row of the table.

Responsibility (column 2)

• Select the best match for the responsibility of the position/committee reported in column 1 (Name of the position(s)...), or select ‘Other, please specify’ and add a label for the main responsibility.

Please explain (column 4)

• Describe the individual’s/committee’s position in the corporate structure, providing a rationale for having the responsibility for forest related issues at the position or the committee selected.
• Note that this question asks about the position and not about the names of the staff holding these positions. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.
• Describe the nature of the report to the board referred to in column 3 (Frequency of reporting...).
• Provide rationale for the frequency of reporting to the board selected in column 3.
• Provide further context for the specific responsibilities, duties and actions of this individual/committee.
• If you selected ‘Not reported to board’ in column 3, explain your reasons here.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related issues: for the purposes of the forests questionnaire, this refers to deforestation and forest degradation as well as conversion and degradation of other natural ecosystems.
• Highest-level management: the most senior individual or committee that holds specific executive power over the management of day-to-day tasks. These managers hold the ultimate responsibility over the implementation of the decisions taken at the board level.

Employee incentives

(F4.3) Do you provide incentives to C-suite employees or board members for the management of forests-related issues?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Data users wish to understand the degree to which organizations encourage their employees to address forests-related issues and impacts of the business, as well as the mechanisms by which organizations are incentivizing certain behaviors and performances. Providing insight into the nature of these incentives and the specific forests-related aspects that they address will inform investors and other data users about how these incentives are aligned with your organization’s identified risks and opportunities, forest policy and business strategy.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and process to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• If your organization has a formal procedure/scheme that provides any type of incentive to C-suite employees or members of the Board related to the attainment of your organization’s forests-related policies, commitments and targets, please select ‘Yes’. You’ll be able to provide details on these incentives later on.

Comment (column 2) (optional)

• Use the Comment column to provide an explanation of the reasons why your organization is not adopting, or does not consider it relevant to adopt, incentives to C-suite employees or board members for the management of forests-related issues.
• Note that this question asks about incentives to C-suite employees or board members. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.

Explanation of terms

• C-suite: a term used to collectively refer to the most senior executive team.

(F4.3a) What incentives are provided to C-Suite employees or board members for the management of forests-related issues (do not include the names of individuals)?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ' Yes' in response to F4.3.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Data users wish to understand the degree to which organizations encourage their employees to address forests-related issues and impacts of the business, as well as the mechanisms by which organizations are incentivizing certain behaviors and performances. Providing insight into the nature of these incentives and the specific forests-related aspects that they address will inform investors and other data users about how these incentives are aligned with your organization’s identified risks and opportunities, forest policy and business strategy.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and process to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Type of incentive (column 1)

• See the description of each type of incentives in the ‘Explanation of terms’.

Role(s) entitled to incentive (column 2)

• Select the best match for the senior role you are reporting on, or select "Other, please specify".
• Select ‘No one is entitled to these incentives’ if your organization does not have a specific type of incentive.
• If none of the options are appropriate, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.
• Note that this question asks about the position of senior employees receiving incentives. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.

Performance indicator (column 3)

• Select all the options that are relevant for the incentive you are describing.
• Incentives performance indicators may include, among others, those demonstrating progress towards your organization’s:

- specific commitments and targets;
- supplier engagement processes and projects;
- reputation in the market;
- behavioral change policies and projects, internally and/or externally.

• Select ‘No indicator for incentivized performance’ as a drop-down if your organization has already selected ‘No one is entitled to these incentives’ in column 2 (Role(s) entitled…?).
• If none of the options are appropriate, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Please explain (column 4)

• Provide details on your incentive indicator, explaining how this aims to contribute to your organization's forests-related goals, which is threshold of success, and how is it measured.
• Provide company-specific examples of how this incentive has impacted your organization so far, and what is expected as future benefits.
• Provide an explanation for why your organization does not have a specific type of incentive, if that is applicable.
• Note that this question asks about the position of senior employees receiving incentives. Do not include the name of any individual or any other personal data in your response.

Explanation of terms

• Monetary incentive: a bonus or some form of financial remuneration.
• Non-monetary reward: a reward not tied directly to any form of financial remuneration, including employee award (e.g. employee of the year), career progression scheme, increased holiday allowances, special assignment, parking allocations, etc.

Reporting

(F4.4) Did your organization include information about its response to forests-related risks in its most recent mainstream financial report?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

The integration of information on climate-related risk into mainstream financial reporting is a regulatory requirement in some jurisdictions and is a TCFD recommendation. CDP data users wish to understand whether a company includes, or plans to include, forests-related information to facilitate their understanding of the company’s response to forests risk and progress towards eliminating commodity-driven deforestation.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes (you may attach the report – this is optional)
• No, but we plan to do so in the next two years
• No, and we have no plans to do so

Requested content

General

• Select ‘Yes’ if your organization included details on its forests-related risks and risk management in its most recent mainstream financial report.
• The mainstream report should relate to the reporting year, although it may not have been published during the reporting year.
• If your organization’s mainstream report contains details on its forests-related risks and risk management for the reporting year but has not been published at the time of submission of your CDP response, select ’No, but we plan to do so in the next two years’.
• If you wish to comment on your selection, you may click on the ’speech bubble’ icon. This is optional.

Explanation of terms

• Mainstream financial reports: the annual reporting packages in which organizations are required to deliver their audited financial results under the corporate, compliance or securities laws of the country in which they operate (CDSB Framework, 2018).

Policy

(F4.5) Does your organization have a policy that includes forests-related issues?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Setting a corporate policy for forests-related issues indicates that the organization recognizes its responsibility in reducing deforestation and forest degradation caused by the production, procurement and/or marketing of forest-risk commodities. CDP investors and other data users want to know that companies have articulated and documented a policy that recognizes the importance of forests-related issues to their business and sets clear goals and guidelines for action. If forests-related issues are not yet covered by your policy, you should see an opportunity to consider including them in the near future.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 2: Respect for human rights

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes, we have a documented forest policy that is publicly available
• Yes, we have a documented forest policy, but it is not publicly available
• No, but we plan to develop one within the next two years
• No

Requested content

General

• This question asks if your organization has a policy in place that considers forests-related issues. It may be a stand-alone forest policy document, no matter what the title is, or another equivalent document that includes the company-wide forest policy such as a "sustainability policy".
• CDP understands that the policy is publicly available if it is accessible to all relevant stakeholders (e.g., those available on the organization’s website or at any other unrestricted site). If that’s the case of your policy, select "Yes, we have a documented forest policy that is publicly available".
• Organizations may additionally or otherwise integrate forests matters to some extent into numerous other corporate policy and procedural documents, e.g. supplier codes, agricultural policies, environmental standards and procurement policies. We are not asking for information about those here.

Explanation of terms

• Forests-related issues: for the purposes of the forests questionnaire, this refers to deforestation and forest degradation as well as conversion and degradation of other natural ecosystems.

(F4.5a) Select the options to describe the scope and content of your policy.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F4.5.

Change from last year

Minor change

Rationale

This question gathers data on the aspects that are covered by your policy. This informs investors and other data users about the principles adopted by your business regarding forests-related issues, and provides an insight into your organization’s level of awareness of those issues, as well as the robustness of your policy.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 2: Respect for human rights

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• You should provide information on the general aspects and main goals covered by your organization’s forest policy or equivalent. Note that you should not disclose specific details on your commitments as you will be able to do this in Module 6 (Implementation).
• If you have no stand-alone forest-policy, you should provide details on your equivalent document that includes the company-wide principles and goals regarding forests-related issues, e.g. "sustainability policy".
• If your organization has no overall forest policy, but rather commodity-specific policies only (e.g. palm oil policy), you should disclose in this question the options that are common to all your commodity-specific policies only. In question F4.5b, you will be able to disclose details on each of your commodity-specific policies.

Scope (column 1)

• Select the option that best describes the coverage of this policy (i.e. how broadly does the policy apply?).

Content (column 2)

• Select all the options that describe the content of your forest policy.
• If you would like to add an option, select "Other please specify" and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Please explain (column 3)

• Please provide further details on your forest policy, including:

- details on the content, explaining why the selected options were included in the policy;
- coverage (parts of the business, and stages of value-chain covered by the policy); and
- how regularly it is reviewed or updated.

• Please mention and provide an explanation if there are any exclusions.
• Specify which biomes or ecoregions are covered by your policy, e.g. Cerrado biome.

Explanation of terms

• Compensation: actions taken and/or funds made available to remedy or counterbalance deforestation, conversion, degradation, or other harms to ecosystems and their conservation values with environmental and/or social gains at sites other than those where the harms occurred (AFi, 2019).
• Conversion: human-induced change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, and/or function.

-Deforestation is one form of conversion (conversion of natural forests)

-Conversion includes severe degradation or the introduction of management practices that result in a substantial and sustained change in the ecosystem’s former species composition, structure, or function.


-Change to natural ecosystems that meets this definition is considered to be conversion regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Deforestation: loss of natural forest as a result of the following human activities: i) conversion to agriculture or other non-forest land use; ii) conversion to a tree plantation; or iii) severe and sustained degradation.

- Severe degradation constitutes deforestation even if the land is not subsequently used for non-forest land use.

- Loss of natural forest that meets this definition is considered to be deforestation regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted.

- Deforestation signifies gross deforestation of a natural forest where "gross" is used in the sense of "total; aggregate; without deduction for reforestation or other offsets" (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Remediation and remedy: refer to both the process of providing redress for a negative impact and the substantive outcomes that can counteract, or make good, the negative impact. These outcomes may take a range of forms such as apologies, restitution, rehabilitation, restoration, financial or non-financial compensation, and punitive sanctions (whether criminal or administrative, such as fines), as well as the prevention of harm through, for example, injunctions or guarantees of non-repetition (AFi, 2019).
• Restoration: the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (SER, 2002).
  
• SDGs: the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals for 2030 that look to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental (Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, 2015).
• Standard: level of quality or achievement used as a measure, norm, model. Usually corporate standards are a document that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods that are understood by the company as the minimum accepted requirements.

Additional information

• Many organizations have adopted a No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy (NDPE), committing to avoid deforestation and forest degradation of critical habitats and peatlands and to respect social rights. If you have a "Commitment to no deforestation, to no planting on peatlands and to no exploitation (NDPE)" you will be able disclose the criteria that your policy covers in the commitments question (F4.6b).

(F4.5b) Do you have commodity specific sustainability policy(ies)? If yes, select the options that best describe their scope and content.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select 'Yes' in response to F4.5.

Change from last year

Minor change

Rationale

Organizations might develop policies focusing on specific forest risk commodities. This may reflect the fact that some commodities are more relevant than others to their business, that each commodity requires a distinct approach, or that organizations have progressed differently on their sustainability approach regarding their forest risk commodities. This question gathers information on what principles and goals are covered by your commodity specific policies. This will inform investors and other data users on the content of your policies and provide insight on whether your policies are consistent with your business dependency on each forest risk commodity.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 2: Respect for human rights

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Content (column 4)

Requested content

General

• By commodity specific policy, CDP means a policy that clearly specifies the commodity to which the set of principles and goals are applicable to. If you have a policy that follows this principle, please disclose its details here.
• Note that if your forest policy covers all commodities relevant to your business but it does not specify clear principles and guidelines for each commodity, this does not constitute a commodity specific policy. Therefore, you should select ‘No’ in column 2 (Do you have a commodity...) for all commodities.

Scope (column 3)

• Select the option that best describes the coverage of this policy (i.e. how broadly does the policy apply?).
• Select ‘Company-wide’ if your policy(ies) cover all products that use the relevant forest risk commodity across your direct operations and value chain, even if the policy itself does not extend to all areas of your business.

Content (column 4)

• Select all the options that describe the content of your forest policy.
• If you would like to add an option, select ‘Other please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Please explain (column 5)

• Please provide further details on your forest policy, including:

- details on the content, explaining why the selected options were included in the policy;
- coverage (parts of the business, and stages of value-chain covered by the policy);
- how regularly it is reviewed or updated.

• Please mention and provide an explanation if there are any exclusions.
• Specify which biomes or ecoregions are covered by your policy, e.g. Cerrado biome.

Explanation of terms

• Compensation: actions taken and/or funds made available to remedy or counterbalance deforestation, conversion, degradation, or other harms to ecosystems and their conservation values with environmental and/or social gains at sites other than those where the harms occurred (AFi, 2019).
• Conversion: human-induced change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, and/or function.

-Deforestation is one form of conversion (conversion of natural forests)

-Conversion includes severe degradation or the introduction of management practices that result in a substantial and sustained change in the ecosystem’s former species composition, structure, or function.


-Change to natural ecosystems that meets this definition is considered to be conversion regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted (adapted from AFi, 2019)

• Deforestation: loss of natural forest as a result of the following human activities: i) conversion to agriculture or other non-forest land use; ii) conversion to a tree plantation; or iii) severe and sustained degradation.

- Severe degradation constitutes deforestation even if the land is not subsequently used for non-forest land use.

- Loss of natural forest that meets this definition is considered to be deforestation regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted.

- Deforestation signifies gross deforestation of a natural forest where "gross" is used in the sense of "total; aggregate; without deduction for reforestation or other offsets" (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Remediation and remedy: refer to both the process of providing redress for a negative impact and the substantive outcomes that can counteract, or make good, the negative impact. These outcomes may take a range of forms such as apologies, restitution, rehabilitation, restoration, financial or non-financial compensation, and punitive sanctions (whether criminal or administrative, such as fines), as well as the prevention of harm through, for example, injunctions or guarantees of non-repetition (AFi, 2019).
• Restoration: the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (SER, 2002).
  
• SDGs: the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals for 2030 that look to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental (Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, 2015).
• Standard: level of quality or achievement used as a measure, norm, model. Usually corporate standards are a document that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods that are understood by the company as the minimum accepted requirements.

Additional information

• Many organizations have adopted a No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy (NDPE), committing to avoid deforestation and forest degradation of critical habitats and peatlands and to respect social rights. If you have selected "Commitment to no deforestation, to no planting on peatlands and to no exploitation (NDPE)" you will be able disclose the criteria that your policy covers in the commitments question (F4.6b).

Public commitment

(F4.6) Has your organization made a public commitment to reduce or remove deforestation and/or forest degradation from its direct operations and/or supply chain?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question elicits data on any forests-related commitment that have been made public by companies. An organization that commits publicly to implement a forest policy shows investors and other data users a strong signal of its progress towards sustainable forests stewardship. Companies benefit from disclosing this information by benchmarking their commitments against their peers and driving change within their industries.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes
• No

Requested content

General

• A commitment is public when it is accessible to all relevant stakeholders (e.g., those available on the organization’s website or on any other unrestricted site).
• Your commitments should reflect actions taken to implement your forest policy described in F4.5a and F4.5b, if applicable.
• Please select ‘Yes’ if your organization has made any public commitment to reduce or remove deforestation and/or forest degradation from its direct operations and/or supply chain.
• Internal or private commitments should not be disclosed here.
• You will have the opportunity to provide details on your commitments in the following questions.

(F4.6a) Has your organization endorsed any of the following initiatives as part of its public commitment to reduce or remove deforestation and/or forest degradation?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes’ in response to F4.6.

Change from last year

Minor change; Additional guidance

Rationale

This question elicits data on deforestation-free commitments that are made public by collective agreements and global initiatives. Endorsing widely known public initiatives reflects best practices of forest stewardship and meets data users demand for forests-related corporate action. Companies benefit from disclosing this information by benchmarking themselves against their peers.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 10: Collaboration for landscape and sectoral sustainability

Response options

Select all that apply:

• New York Declaration on Forests
• Tropical Forest Alliance
• Cerrado Manifesto
• Soy Moratorium
• Cattle Agreement (TAC)
• Chinese Sustainable Meat Declaration
• Compromiso Gran Chaco Argentino 2030
• Fashion Pact
• No, we do not endorse any initiatives
• Other, please specify

Requested content

General

• CDP has listed leading global initiatives that promote adoption of corporate commitments to eliminate commodity-driven deforestation from supply chains. Initiatives disclosed here should be voluntary and clearly related to public commitments on reducing commodity-driven deforestation and/or forest degradation.
• Only select ‘New York Declaration on Forests’ if your organization is listed as an endorser on the New York Declaration on Forests Global Platform website.
• Only select ‘Tropical Forest Alliance’ if your organization is listed as a partner on the initiative’s website.
• Only select ‘Cerrado Manifesto’ if your organization has publicly endorsed the Cerrado Manifesto.
• Only select ‘Soy Moratorium’ if your organization has publicly committed not to purchase soy grown on land deforested in the Brazilian Amazon after July 2006.
• Only select ‘Cattle Agreement (TAC)’, i.e. Terms of Adjustment of Conduct, if your organization has agreed not to purchase cattle from deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon after 2009.
• Only select ‘Chinese Sustainable Meat Declaration’ if your organization is listed as a signatory.
• Only select ‘Compromiso Gran Chaco Argentino 2030’ if your organization is listed as a signatory on the initiative’s website.
• Only select “Fashion Pact” if your organization is listed as a signatory of the Fashion Pact , and has agreed to meet the targets of the Common Agenda.
• If you select “Other, please specify”, provide a label for the initiative.

Additional information

• The ‘New York Declaration on Forests’ (NYDF), launched in 2014, brings together governments, companies and other stakeholders committed to its ten goals, which include “eliminating deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper and beef products by no later than 2020”.
• The ‘Tropical Forest Alliance’ (TFA2020) is global public-private initiative in which partners are committed “to reduce tropical deforestation associated with the sourcing of commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, and paper and pulp”.
• The ‘Cerrado Manifesto’ is a statement of support launched in 2017 by companies and investors in defense of the Brazilian Cerrado. Signatories have committed to halt deforestation driven from by cattle and soy supply chains.
• The ‘Soy Moratorium’ is a multi-stakeholder initiative led by the soy industry to tackle deforestation in Brazil, where signatories commit to not trade soy from deforested areas in the Amazon after July 2006.
• The ‘Cattle Agreement’ (‘TAC’) is a legally binding agreement signed by meatpackers with the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), which committed to (1) not purchase cattle from properties with illegal deforestation after 2009, (2) registered in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and are (3) Free from slave labor.
• The ‘Chinese Sustainable Meat Declaration’ was launched by WWF and the Chinese Meat Association to promote sustainable meat production, trade and consumption. This includes a commitment by the meat industry to no deforestation and no conversion.
• The ‘Compromiso Gran Chaco Argentino 2030’ calls on private sector organizations working in the Argentine Gran Chaco to; 1 ) Strictly comply with current regulations, especially the Forest Law and require compliance of the actors in their value chain . 2) Avoid deforestation and ecosystem conversion, prioritizing the best use of already transformed areas (within the legal framework), incorporating process technologies that reduce socio-environmental negative impacts & 3) Ensure the traceability of products throughout their value chain.
• The 'Fashion Pact' is a global coalition of companies in the fashion and textile industry (ready-to-wear, sport, lifestyle and luxury) including their suppliers and distributors, all committed to the Common Agenda; a common core of key environmental goals in three areas: stopping global warming, restoring biodiversity and protecting the oceans.

(F4.6b) Provide details on your public commitment(s), including the description of specific criteria, coverage, and actions.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes’ in response to F4.6.

Change from last year

Minor change

Rationale

This question gathers details on your public forests-related commitment(s).

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 1: Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems

Core Principle 2: Respect for human rights

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 4: Company systems and processes to drive effective implementation

Response options

Please complete the following table.You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Criteria (column 2)

Requested content

General

• This question asks for details on your public commitments related to the production, use and/or trade of forest-risk commodities.

Commodity coverage (column 1)

• If the commitments cover more than one commodity, you should add one row per commodity and indicate the applicable commitments for each commodity.

Criteria (column 2)

• The criteria listed in this column represent elements of your public commitment to reduce or remove deforestation. Only options that were part of your public commitment in the reporting year should be selected. To ensure your response is accurate, see guidance on specific dropdowns below and refer to the "Explanation of terms" section.

- "No conversion of natural ecosystems" should be selected if the organization has a no conversion commitment that covers all natural ecosystems, including natural forests. This criterion encompasses and goes beyond ‘Zero gross deforestation’.
- "Zero gross deforestation" and "Zero net deforestation" differ substantially from one another, representing different levels of ambition. If your organization has a zero-deforestation commitment that does not specify if it is "gross" or "net", refer to the definitions and select the one that best represents your organization’s commitment.
- Select "Other, please specify" if your forests-related public commitments are not covered by the options presented and provide a label for the public commitment.

• If multiple criteria apply to a forest risk commodity, disclose these in a single row unless the target dates and operational coverage are different for the criteria.

Operational coverage (column 3)

• It’s recommended that commitments cover the entirety of a company’s operations, including its supply chain. If you choose "Selected facilities, business and geographies", please provide an explanation in column 7 (Please explain).

% of total production/consumption covered by commitment (column 4)

• Indicate what percentage of your total production and/or consumption of your selected commodity(ies) is covered by your commitment.
• If your organization disclosed production and consumption volumes in F1.5a, this percentage relates to the sum of both (production volume + consumption volume).

Cutoff date (column 5)

• Indicate the cutoff date after which deforestation/conversion is not accepted, as specified in your commitment(s) on no deforestation and/or no conversion. Please refer to the section "Explanation of terms" for more details.
• If your commitments have different cutoff dates, please select the date specified in your primary commitment and specify the other dates in column 7 (Please explain).
• Select "No cutoff date" if none of your commitments on no deforestation/conversion specify a date.
• Select "Not applicable" only if none of your commitments refer to no deforestation/conversion criteria, e.g. "No trade of CITES listed species" or "Adoption of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)".

Commitment target date (column 6)

• Select the year your organization specified for realizing its commitments.
• If different commitments have different target dates, indicate the target date for your main forest-related commitment and provide further information in the "Please explain" column.
• If your organization’s commitment has no established target date, select "No target date" and explain why in the "Please explain" column.

Please explain (column 7)

• Provide any additional information related to your commitments, providing examples, and explain exclusions.
• If the cutoff date you have provided in column 5 (Cutoff date) is for a primary commitment, specify the cutoff date(s) of your other no deforestation/conversion commitment(s) and describe the rationale for your primary commitment.
• If you have selected "No cutoff date", provide an explanation as to why this is the case.
• You should provide details on which biomes or ecoregions are covered by your commitments, e.g. Cerrado biome.

Explanation of terms

• Best management practices for existing cultivation on peat: under the RSPO Principles & Criteria 2018 standard, all existing planting on peat must adhere to the " RSPO Manual on Best Management Practices (BMPs) for existing oil palm cultivation on peat" .
• CITES species: species listed in any of the annexes of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
• Commitment target date: the date by which a given company (or other commitment or policy entity) intends to have fully implemented its commitments or policy (AFi, 2019).
• Compensation: actions taken and/or funds made available to remedy or counterbalance deforestation, conversion, degradation, or other harms to ecosystems and their conservation values with environmental and/or social gains at sites other than those where the harms occurred (AFi, 2019).
• Controversial sources: sources involving forest risk commodities produced/harvested illegally, in violation of traditional and civil rights, threatening high conservation value forests, or from areas where natural forests are being converted to other uses.
• Conversion: human-induced change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, and/or function.

- Deforestation is one form of conversion (conversion of natural forests)

- Conversion includes severe degradation or the introduction of management practices that result in a substantial and sustained change in the ecosystem’s former species composition, structure, or function.

- Change to natural ecosystems that meets this definition is considered to be conversion regardless of whether or not it is legally permitted (adapted from AFi, 2019).

• Cutoff date: the date after which deforestation or conversion renders a given area or production unit non-compliant with no-deforestation or no-conversion commitments, respectively (AFi, 2019).
• Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC): a community right to give or withhold its consent to proposed projects that may affect the lands they customarily own, occupy or otherwise use, as recognized by several international instruments including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), International Labour Organization's (ILO) Convention 169, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (AFi, 2019).
• Gender equality: to end all forms of discrimination against woman by promoting woman`s participation and equal opportunities for leadership in decision-making processes as well as womens equal rights to economic resources such as ownership and control over land and other forms of property (SDG Goal 5).
• High Carbon Stock forests: this is the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA) classification of forested areas that should be protected based on high carbon stock, importance to local communities or high biodiversity value. The HCSA distinguishes high carbon stock forests from degraded lands that may be developed.
• High Conservation Value: biological, ecological, social or cultural values which are considered outstandingly significant or critically important, at the national, regional or global level, as defined by the High Conservation Values (HCV) Resource Network.
• Natural forest: a forest that is a natural ecosystem, i.e., possesses most of the native species composition, structure, and ecological function as a forest native to the given site. This includes:
- Primary forests that have not been subject to major anthropogenic human impacts in recent history;
- Regenerated (second-growth) forests that were subject to major anthropogenic impacts in the past (e.g., by agriculture, livestock raising, tree plantations, or intensive logging) but where the main causes of impact have ceased or greatly diminished and the ecosystem has attained much of the species composition, structure and ecological function of prior or other contemporary natural ecosystems;
- Managed natural forests where much of the ecosystem composition, structure, and ecological function exist in the presence of activities such as: (a) Harvesting of timber or other forest products, including management to promote high-value species, (b)Low intensity, small-scale cultivation within the forest, such as less-intensive forms of swidden agriculture in a forest mosaic; and
- Forests that have been partially degraded by anthropogenic or natural causes (e.g., harvesting, fire, climate change, invasive species), but where the land has not been converted to another use and where degradation does not result in the sustained reduction of tree cover below the thresholds that define a forest, or sustained loss of other main elements of ecosystem composition, structure, and ecological function ( AFi, 2019 ).
• Natural ecosystem: an ecosystem that substantially resembles - in terms of species composition, structure, and ecological function - one that is or would be found in a given area in the absence of major human impacts. This includes human-managed ecosystems where much of the natural species composition, structure, and ecological function are present ( AFi, 2019).
• No-conversion ("or conversion-free"): commodity production, sourcing, or financial investments in commodities that do not cause or contribute to the conversion of natural ecosystems (AFi, 2019).
• No-deforestation ("or deforestation-free"): commodity production, sourcing, or financial investments that do not cause or contribute to deforestation (AFi, 2019).
• Peatland: an area with or without vegetation with a naturally accumulated peat layer at the surface, while peat is defined as accumulated material consisting of at least 30% (dry mass) of dead organic material (Joosten and Clarke, 2002).
• Remediation and remedy: refer to both the process of providing redress for a negative impact and the substantive outcomes that can counteract, or make good, the negative impact. These outcomes may take a range of forms such as apologies, restitution, rehabilitation, restoration, financial or non-financial compensation, and punitive sanctions (whether criminal or administrative, such as fines), as well as the prevention of harm through, for example, injunctions or guarantees of non-repetition (AFi, 2019).
• Restoration: the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (SER, 2002).
• Threatened and protected habitats: all habitats considered threatened or otherwise protected by national or subnational laws and regulation, as well as international multilateral agreements, including protected areas, World Natural Heritage Sites, Natura 2000 sites and other similar areas.
• Threatened and protected species: all species listed on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, as well as other species considered threatened or otherwise protected by national or subnational laws and regulation.
• Zero gross deforestation: means no conversion of forest to non-forest land use, and therefore, does not allow deforestation to be compensated for by compensatory gains in forest cover made elsewhere (FAO, 2017)
• Zero net deforestation: no net forest loss in forest area between two points in time, taking into account both losses from deforestation and gains from forest regeneration and restoration. Zero net deforestation would typically be assessed with reference to a given geographic area (e.g., a district, state, nation, or globe) and a given timeframe (AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• For further information on Commitments types and guidelines, please refer to: Weber, K., Walther-Thoß, J., & Fleckenstein, M. (2016). Deforestation-free supply chains. Concepts and implications. WWF Deutschland. Berlin.
• There are eight Fundamental ILO Conventions with the ILO numbers: Freedom of Association (No. 87); Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining (No. 98); No Forced Labour (No. 29 & No. 105); Minimum Age (No. 138); Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182); Equal Remuneration (No. 100); No Discrimination (No. 111).

Example response

F5 Business strategy

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F5. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Strategic plan

(F5.1) Are forests-related issues integrated into any aspects of your long-term strategic business plan, and if so how?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question allows companies to explain if and how they have considered and acted upon forests-related issues at a high level. This question is not asking simply about your organization's response to forests-related issues. Investors and other data users are interested in forward-looking strategic innovations and financial decisions that have been driven by market opportunities, public policy objectives, and corporate responsibility commitments related to forests issues.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• When responding to this question, companies should consider if, what and how forests-related issues have affected the three aspects of their business planning at the corporate level for a time horizon beyond 5 years. Primarily, consider if the following issues have affected your long term strategic business plan:

- removing or reducing deforestation and conversion of natural ecosystems from your direct operations and supply chain;

- promoting ecosystem restoration and/or conservation in your direct operations and supply chain (e.g. to remedy past deforestation or conversion);

- increasing the sustainable production and/or consumption of forest risk commodities.

• This could be in response to existing risks or future risks, but could also include other considerations, inside and outside of the company, related to forests issues and commodities, such as current and future market opportunities, public policy agendas, and corporate responsibility commitments.

Are forests-related issues integrated? (column 2)

• You should answer 'yes, forests-related issues are integrated' if they have been included in your organizations' long-term objectives, strategy to realize these objectives and its long-term financial planning.

Long-term time horizon (column 3)

• Select the option that best describes how far into the future your organization considers forests-related issues in each aspect of its business strategy.

Please explain (column 4)

• Provide further details on how forests-related issues are integrated into each aspect of the strategy, using company-specific examples.
• Explain why you have chosen the time horizon indicated in column 3 (Long-term time horizon).
• Specify whether these plans apply to all of your disclosed commodities or to only a selection of them. If your plans do not apply to all your commodities, please provide your reasons here.
• If you indicated in column 2 (Are forests-related issues...) that you have plans to review forests-related issues in the next two years, provide details of your plans.
• If you have not integrated these issues in any aspect(s) of your business plans, indicate your primary reason for not doing so and provide an explanation.

Explanation of terms

• Business objectives: these describe what the organization expects to accomplish over a specified time period, and typically include a statement of purpose and anticipated future state for the organization.
• Financial planning: includes outlining the actions, assets, and resources necessary to meet an organization’s objectives and strategic goals. It is not limited to just creating a “financial plan”, but also includes long-term capital allocations that will go beyond the typical 3-5 year financial plan (e.g., investment, research and development, manufacturing, and markets) (TCFD, 2017).
• Forests-related issues: for the purposes of the forests questionnaire, this refers to deforestation and forest degradation as well as conversion and degradation of other natural ecosystems.
• Strategy: refers to an organization’s anticipated future state. The strategy creates a benchmark against which the organization can monitor and measure its progress in reaching that desired state. The strategy design can involve reviewing the motive and scope behind the organization’s activities and the nature of its businesses, considering the risks and opportunities it faces and the environment in which it operates (TCFD, 2017).

F6 Implementation

Module Overview

This module is critical as it requests information on how organizations plan to implement, or are already implementing, their policies and commitments associated with forests-related issues.

Questions in this module ask details on:

• Specific targets for improving sustainability;
• Traceability systems in place;
• Certification schemes adopted;
• Mechanisms to ensure legal compliance and compliance with commitments; and
• Engagement within and beyond the company's supply chain.

Key changes

• New and removed response options (F6.1a column 8 & F6.3a column 2) for updated certification scheme list.
• New response option for (F6.3 column 2) to indicate whether there is a plan to adopt a third-party certification scheme within the next two years for companies that do not have one.
• New response options (F6.8 column 4) to reflect new direct supplier engagement approaches, and to remove the option to report on supply chain mapping in this question.
• New questions: F6.10, F6.10a and F6.10b requests information on engagement with landscape approaches (including jurisdictional approaches).
• Modified question: F6.11 (2021 F6.10) question structure has been modified to request new information on locations. The option to disclose on jurisdictional approaches has been removed.
• Modified guidance: F6.7 guidance now indicates that companies may report on engagement with smallholders from outside of their value chain.
• Modified guidance: F6.12a (2021 F6.11a) guidance for when companies may select ‘Biodiversity offsetting’ in column ‘Project type’ has been revised.
• Additional guidance: A definition of ‘Forest management unit’ has been added in F6.1a and F6.2a.
• Additional guidance: A definition of ‘Indirect suppliers’ has been added in F6.9.
• Click here for a list of all changes made this year.

Pathway diagram - questions

This diagram shows the general questions contained in module F6. To access question-level guidance, use the menu on the left to navigate to the question.

Targets

(F6.1) Did you have any timebound and quantifiable targets for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption of your disclosed commodity(ies) that were active during the reporting year?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers data on specific targets on sustainable production and/or consumption of forest risk commodities. Effective implementation of policies and commitments requires specific targets to be set. Ambitious targets reflect how urgent forest issues are being addressed by organizations. Information disclosed about your targets provides CDP data-users with a way of tracking progress towards sustainability. Organizations also benefit from setting targets by having clear indicators of their progress towards better forest stewardship.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Response options

Select one of the following options:

• Yes
• No

Requested content

General

• Select ‘Yes’ if targets for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption were active during the reporting year, including targets that have been reached during this period.
• Note that these targets should be in line with your policy and commitments and refer to specific, measurable, achievable and timebound actions that you may adopt for improving sustainable production and/or consumption within your organization. For example, you may have targets for adopting certain standards by a certain date or to increase the traceability level for a certain commodity.

Explanation of terms

• Target: a specific measurable output set by your company to be achieved within a specific timeframe. Targets are usually small steps towards a wider and long-term corporate goal and should be linked to a policy and/or commitment.

(F6.1a) Provide details of your timebound and quantifiable target(s) for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption of the disclosed commodity(ies), and progress made.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes’ in response to F6.1.

Change from last year

Minor change; Additional guidance

Rationale

This question gathers details your specific targets on sustainable production and/or consumption of forest risk commodities.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Traceability point (column 6)

Third-party certification scheme (column 7)

Requested content

General

• Please disclose all targets for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption that were active during the reporting year. Targets that have been achieved during the reporting year should also be disclosed.
• Targets are specific and quantifiable actions which help increase the sustainable production and/or consumption of disclosed commodities, potentially helping companies to assess progress towards the commitments disclosed in question F4.6b.
• If you failed to meet a target in the reporting year, please report this, and do not report the same target with a new target date.

Target reference number (column 1)

• Please select a single unique reference number for each target.
• You can provide a maximum of 20 different targets (Target 1- Target 20).
• Each reference number shall be used to track progress on the specific target in the following years.

Forest risk commodity (column 2)

• If you have specified targets for different commodities, ensure that you respond to this question by adding new rows for each commodity.

Type of target (column 3)

• Note that all types of target listed in this column correspond to questions you will find in different sections of the implementation module (Module F6). For greater clarity on terminology and different actions to achieve specific targets, refer to the guidance to these individual questions.
• If your target is related to `Traceability`, you will have to provide further details on the level of traceability across your supply chain in column 6 (Traceability point).
• If your target is linked to ‘Third-party certification’, you will be asked to provide further details on which schemes are accepted in column 7 (Third-party certification scheme).
• If none of the available options are appropriate to describe your target, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete. Details on the type of target should be provided in column 14 (Please explain).

Desciption of target (column 4)

• Provide a short description of your target to help CDP data users understand what your organization is trying to achieve.
• Targets should aim to be specific, measurable and time-bound, and may be objectively evaluated and verified.

Linked commitment (column 5)

• Indicate if the disclosed target is linked to forests-related commitments disclosed in question F4.6b.
• Select ‘Not linked to specific commitment’ if the target is not part of your strategy to achieve a previously disclosed commitment.

Third-party certification scheme (column 7)

• If you have a target that involves more than one certification scheme per commodity, you may select all that apply. If more than one certification scheme is selected, please inform in column 14 (Please explain) if there are specific targets for each certification scheme.
• If none of the available options describe the scheme adopted by your organization, or if you would like to add a scheme that is not on the list, select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Start year (column 8)

• This date is a reference point in the past for which your organization is able to provide reliable data regarding a specific target. For example, if you have data showing that in 2015, 15% of the refined palm oil acquired by your organization was traceable to country level, 2015 can be used as the start year for a traceability target aiming at 100% of refined palm oil, traceable to country level, by a given year.

Target year (column 9)

• This date represents when you expect to achieve your target for increasing sustainable production/consumption.
• The target year should be in the future, or the current reporting year at the earliest.

Quantitative metric (column 10)

• Considering the type of target selected in column 3 (Type of target), indicate whether the metric used to track your progress is a percentage (e.g. % of certified materials) or an absolute number (e.g. number of smallholders engaged).

Target (number) column 11)

• If you have selected ‘absolute number’ in column 10 (Quantitative metric), you should disclose your target figure here.

Target (%) (column 12)

• If you have selected ‘percentage’ in column 10 (Quantitative metric), you should disclose your target percentage here.
• Only enter “100%” if the target has full coverage of commodity volumes or operations

% of target achieved (column 13)

• Indicate the percentage of your target achieved in the reporting year, where 100% corresponds to the full achievement of the target.
• If you have surpassed the target, write “100” in response to this column and provide further details in column 14 (Please explain).
  

Please explain (column 14)

• Use this column to provide additional information on your targets, including why the targets have been chosen and how the company is planning to meet them.
• If you provided a percentage as your target in “Target (%)” (Column 12), provide a description of the target’s coverage.
• If you have a target on third-party certification and selected multiple certification schemes for the commodity, provide a breakdown of your targets for each certification scheme.
• Include a company-specific rationale for the target, its level of ambition, why it is important, and why it is being monitored at the corporate level.
• You may also include further information, for example:

- if the target is the same for all jurisdictions, or if it is aligned with local risk levels.
- how the target is being implemented and what investment in financial or personnel resources is necessary to achieve the target.

Explanation of terms

• First importers: the company (usually a refiner/trader) that has imported products from a producing country (e.g., Brazil/Indonesia) to the country of ingredient manufacturing (e.g., China).
• Forest management unit: a defined area of manageable land that is either fully or partly covered in forest.
• Target: a specific measurable output set by your company to be achieved within a specific timeframe. Targets are usually small steps towards a wider and long-term corporate goal and should be linked to a policy and/or commitment.
• Third-party certification: when a certification process is carried out by an independent organization.
• Traceability: the ability to follow a product or its components through stages of the supply chain (e.g., production, processing, manufacturing, and distribution) (AFi, 2019).
• Tree plantations: a forest predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding that lacks key elements of natural forest native to an area such as species composition and structural diversity.

-Tree plantations generally have one or a few tree species and tend to include one or more of the following characteristics (i) planted on cleared land, (ii) harvest regularly, (iii) trees are of even ages, (iv) products from plantation are managed and processed for commercial plantation.

- Tree plantations can consist of tree planted for timber, pulp, non-timber forest products (e.g., rubber latex), or ecosystem services (e.g., soil stabilization). Plantations dominantly by agricultural species (e.g., fruits or oil palm) are considered agriculture, not tree plantations (AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• For further details on targets linked to company commitments refer to AFi Core Principle 3.2 (Verifiable actions and time-bound targets), AFi Core Principle 3.4 (Relationship between company commitments and applicable law) (AFi, 2019).
• Beef cattle farming can have up to three production stages: "Breeding", "Rearing" and "Fattening" farms. Each stage can take place on different farms (partial cycle) or on the same farm (full cycle).
• For an example of a traceability tool kit, please refer to "Soy traceability and supply chain transparency" (Proforest, 2019).

Example response

Row 1

Row 2

Row 3

(F6.1b) Why do you not have target(s) for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption of your disclosed commodity(ies) and what are your plans to develop these in the future?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘No’ in response to F6.1.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers information on the primary reasons for why organizations did not have any quantified targets for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption in the reporting year. It also provides a space for disclosers to explain any short-term plan for setting targets. This information meets the demand for corporate transparency from investors and other data users. Organizations benefit from disclosing this information by having a platform for reporting challenges or future projects for target-setting.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the option that best describes the primary reason for why your organization has no targets for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption of the forest risk commodity shown in column 1, or indicate if you have plans for implementing targets in the next two years.

Please explain (column 3)

• If you select ‘We are planning to introduce a target in the next two years’, specify, whenever possible, the type of target, indicators, whether it applies to produced or sourced materials, the target coverage (e.g., company-wide, or selected facilities), and the expected date for implementing the target.
• For any other primary reason selected, provide further information to clarify why you do not have target(s) for increasing sustainable production and/or consumption of your disclosed commodity(ies).

Traceability

(F6.2) Do you have traceability system(s) in place to track and monitor the origin of your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

It is critical for companies to have a system in place to track and monitor the origin of raw materials derived from forest risk commodities, if they want to understand their exposure to forests-related risks. This question elicits data on the traceability system(s) and on the level of traceability used by organizations to ensure that their sourced/traded forest risk commodity(ies) meets the specified sustainability requirements. This information helps investors and other data users to assess whether organizations are tracking the origin of their forest risk commodities, and if they can monitor forests-related risks across their supply chains.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• This question focusses on whether the company is able track the forest risk commodity back to its original source. Note that the question is not about consumption/production of certified products. It is also not about chain of custody certification, which ensures that the product is in line with the standard along the supply-chain, but not necessarily indicates its origin.
• If your organization has a traceability system in place, select 'Yes'.

Description of traceability system (column 3)

• Describe the system that allows your company to indicate the point of origin of the forest risk commodities consumed and/or produced, including information on whether it allows your company to identify the biome of origin (e.g., Cerrado biome).
• Provide one or more examples of how the system has allowed the company to trace forest risk commodities back to the origin.

Exclusions (column 4)

• Select all the options that apply. If none of the available options are suitable, please select ‘Other, please specify’ and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Description of exclusion (column 5)

• Describe the exclusion(s) selected in the previous column and provide an explanation.
• If a specific biome or ecoregion is excluded (under ‘geographical region’), specify which and why it was excluded.

Explanation of terms

• Traceability: the ability to follow a product or its components through stages of the supply chain (e.g., production, processing, manufacturing, and distribution) (AFi, 2019).
• Traceability system: system that tracks by documentation the trail of products and/or raw materials along the value chain.

(F6.2a) Provide details on the level of traceability your organization has for its disclosed commodity(ies).

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes’ in response to F6.2.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers details on the traceability system(s) and on the level of traceability used by organizations to ensure that their sourced/traded forest risk commodity(ies) meets the specified sustainability requirements. This information helps investors and other data users to assess whether organizations are tracking the origin of their forest risk commodities, and if they can monitor forests-related risks across their supply chains.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table. The table is displayed over several rows for readability. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add row]

Point to which commodity is traceable (column 2)

Requested content

General

• A traceability system records and follows the trail of products, parts and, materials from the original production/extraction of raw materials, along the supply chain, to their ultimate distribution as final products to the customer. Note that chain of custody certification is not a traceability system since its main objective is to ensure the identity of certified products along the supply chain, rather than to the point of origin.

Point to which commodity is traceable (column 2)

• The ‘origin’ or ‘point of origin’ could be a farm or 'breeding' farm (for cattle), a plantation (for soy, palm oil or timber), or a forest management unit for native timber products that are identified as the original source of a product and its natural components. Note that this is different from the point of manufacture. For paper or paper packaging, a named paper mill is an acceptable point of origin. For retailers, a country, region, or province is an acceptable point of origin.
• For retailers and/or manufacturers, you can select ‘First importer’ as the ‘origin’ or ‘point of origin’ of your disclosed commodity.
• If you have multiple levels of traceability, add a new row per traceability level. For example, if you are sourcing soy from various regions with different levels of traceability down the supply chain, you can add rows to inform the respective percentage of traceability down the supply chain (e.g. 50% to ‘farm level’, 30% to ‘country-level’ and 20% ‘not traceable’).
• If you are disclosing for cattle products and trace down to farm level, add a row for each level of traceability down the supply chain, i.e. specifying whether it is a 'breeding farm' if you have traceability to the point of origin, or 'rearing farm' and/or ‘fattening farm’ if you have partial traceability. If you are unable to specify this information, select 'fattening farm'.
• Please see the diagram in Figure 1, which identifies the production stages of the cattle supply chain in Brazil. For further details on the traceability levels for cattle products, please refer to the 'Explanation of terms' and 'Additional information'.

% of total production/consumption volume traceable (column 3)

• Indicate the percentage of your total production and/or consumption volume of the disclosed forest risk commodity you can trace or not trace back to, at least, country level.
• If your organization disclosed production and consumption volumes in F1.5a, this percentage relates to the sum of both (production volume + consumption volume)
• If you selected “Not traceable” in column 2 (Point to which…), the percentage should represent the volume that cannot be traced for the disclosed forest risk commodity.
• For all other drop-down options in column 2, the percentage should represent the volume that is traceable to the point selected for the disclosed forest risk commodity.
• It is expected that the percentages disclosed will sum up to 100%, covering the totality of the volumes disclosed in F1.5a.

Explanation of terms

• Breeding farm: first stage of the production cycle where cattle are born (Proforest, 2017).
• Rearing farm: second stage of the production cycle where cattle stays for the majority of its adult life (Proforest, 2017).
• Fattening farm: the last stage of the production cycle where cattle are fattened before being sold to slaughterhouses (Proforest, 2017).
• Forest management unit: A defined area of manageable land that is either fully or partly covered in forest.
• Tree plantations: a forest predominantly composed of trees established through planting and/or deliberate seeding that lacks key elements of natural forest native to an area such as species composition and structural diversity.

-Tree plantations generally have one or a few tree species and tend to include one or more of the following characteristics (i) planted on cleared land, (ii) harvest regularly, (iii) trees are of even ages, (iv) products from plantation are managed and processed for commercial plantation.

-Tree plantations can consist of tree planted for timber, pulp, non-timber forest products (e.g., rubber latex), or ecosystem services (e.g., soil stabilization). Plantation dominantly by agricultural species (e.g., fruits or oil palm) are considered agriculture, not tree plantations (AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• For an example of a traceability tool kit, please refer to Proforest (2019).
• Beef cattle farming can have up to three production stages: "Breeding", "Rearing" and "Finishing" farms. Each stage can take place on different farms (partial cycle) or on the same farm (full cycle). For an example from Brazil, please refer to the following:

• Figure 1: Production stages of the cattle supply chain in Brazil (Proforest, 2017)

(F6.2b) Why do you not have system(s) in place to track and monitor the origin of your disclosed commodity(ies) and what are your plans to develop these in the future?

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘No’ in response to F6.2.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers information on the primary reasons for why organizations do not have any system(s) in place to track and monitor the origin of their forest risk commodity(ies). It also provides a space for disclosers to explain any short-term plan for adopting systems. This information meets the demand from CDP data users for improved traceability across supply chains.

Connection to other frameworks

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

[Add Row]

Requested content

Primary reason (column 2)

• Select the option that best describes the primary reason why your organization has no traceability system(s) in place or indicate if you have plans for implementing a traceability system in the next two years.

Please explain (column 3)

• If you select ‘We are planning to introduce a target in the next two years’, specify, whenever possible, the type of traceability system(s), whether it applies to produced or sourced materials, the percentage of your production/consumption volume covered, and the expected date for implementation.

Certification

(F6.3) Have you adopted any third-party certification scheme(s) for your disclosed commodity(ies)?

Change from last year

Modified question

Rationale

This question gathers information on the extent to which your production/consumption is certified by a third party. Credible third-party certification processes can provide a valuable method of demonstrating to investors and other data users that your organization adopts responsible practices. And while it is acknowledged that standards can be subject to controversy and that there are compromises involved in setting any global growing standards, they can be opportunities for collaboration that could benefit your organization through the improvement of your risk management strategy and practice.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table:

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

Requested content

Third-party certification scheme adopted? (column 2)

• For this column, please specify whether you have adopted a third-party certification scheme for each commodity.

% of total production and/or consumption certified (column 3)

• This refers to the total volume of commodity that is produced and/or consumed by your organization. You do not need to report separately for consumed/produced volumes.
• For each commodity that a third-party certification scheme has been adopted for, please indicate the percentage of your total production and/or consumption that is currently certified.

Explanation of terms

• Certification: the action or process of providing a product with an official document attesting to a status or level of achievement against a certain standard.
• Consumption volume: refers to the volume of commodity sourced/purchased by your company, for processing, trading or use as input for manufacturing and/or packaging. This includes the commodity volume contained within manufactured goods sold by retailers.
• Production volume: refers to the volume of commodity produced by your company, i.e. commodity grown, reared or harvested within owned/managed land.
• Third-party certification: when a certification process is carried out by an independent organization.

(F6.3a) Provide a detailed breakdown of the volume and percentage of your production and/or consumption by certification scheme.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if ‘Yes’ is selected in column ‘Third-party certification scheme adopted?’ for at least one row in question F6.3.

Change from last year

Minor change

Rationale

Credible third-party certification demonstrates to investors and other data users that your organization adopts responsible practices, and provides opportunities for collaboration that strengthen your risk management strategy and practice.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Core Principle 12: Reporting, disclosure, and claims

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

(*column/row appearance is dependent on selections in this or other questions)

[Add Row]

Third-party certification scheme (column 2)

Form of commodity (column 5)

Requested content

General

• This question requests data on certification schemes applied to the total production and/or consumption volume per commodity. Production and consumption data are not requested separately.
• Note: Some scheme options, while considered 'credible', are not considered to meet the standard of 'best practice', where certification schemes are capable of linking raw material supplies with production units having specific compliance or performance attributes (AFi 2019). See 'Additional information' below.

Forest risk commodity (column 1)

• Ensure that you respond to this question for all your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies) by adding one row per commodity.

Third-party certification scheme (column 2)

• If you adopted multiple certification schemes for the selected commodity, add a new row per certification scheme.
• Some certification schemes have been grouped into a single drop-down option, specifically “FSC (any type)”, “PEFC (any type)”, “RSPO (any type)”, and “RTRS (any type)”. Select this option only if you are unable to provide a specific volume for each single certification scheme.
• If you produce or consume timber products that comply with national standards that are endorsed by PEFC (e.g. Canadian Standards Association, Australian Forest Standard, etc.), select "PEFC National forest certification system".
• In column 9 (Please explain), provide a description of actions taken in the last year to improve and/or maintain the third-party certification scheme.
• If you would like to add another scheme, please select "Other, please specify" and specify your scheme and provide a brief description of your scheme in column 9 (Please explain).
• Note this question does not request information about mandatory national standards. If you have volumes of certified palm oil that are compliant with Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) or Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) you should disclose this in question F6.6a.

Chain-of-custody model used (column 3)

• Select the option that best reflects the chain-of-custody model of your certification scheme.
• Only appears if option selected in "Third-party certification scheme" does not specify chain of custody model.

% of total production/ consumption certified (column 4)

• This refers to the total volume of commodity that is produced and/or consumed by your organization. You do not need to report separately for consumed/produced volumes

Form of commodity (column 5)

• Select all forms of the commodity covered by the certification scheme(s) selected in column 2.

Volume of production/consumption certified (column 6)

• Indicate the volume of your production and/or consumption for the selected commodity currently certified to the scheme selected in column 2. If the figure is an estimation, please state that in column 9 (Please explain).
• If the forms of commodity you selected in column 5 (Form of commodity) are expressed in different metrics (e.g., square meters and cubic meters), provide the figure for the form representing the largest percentage of your production/consumption volume.

Metric for volume (column 7)

• For the figure provided in column 6 (Volume of production/consumption certified), select the corresponding metric.
• Ensure to select a metric that is suitable to the form(s) of commodity you are disclosing
• If none of the available options are suitable, please select “Other, please specify” and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Is this volume certified by more than one scheme? (column 8)

• Indicate whether the volume of the commodity selected in column 1 is certified by more than one scheme. If this is the case, be sure to add a row for each scheme and provide details in column 9 (Please Explain).

Please explain (column 9)

• Provide a description of the actions taken in the last year to improve and/or maintain the third-party certification scheme selected in Column 2.
• If you select "Other, please specify" in column 2, specify your scheme and provide a brief description of it.
• If the figure provided in column 6 is an estimate, provide a brief explanation here.
• If you select "Yes" in column 8, provide brief details:
  • Provide the volume of the commodity that is certified by more than one scheme.
  • Provide the percentage of total volume that is certified by more than one scheme.
  • State the schemes under which this volume is certified.
• Note that you will still need to add a row for each certification scheme.

Explanation of terms

• Certification: the action or process of providing a product with an official document attesting to a status or level of achievement against a certain standard.
• Chain-of-custody model: Term used to describe the approach taken to demonstrate the link (physical or administrative) between the verified unit of production and the claim about the final product (ISEAL 2016)
• Consumption volume: refers to the volume of commodity sourced/purchased by your company, for processing, trading or use as input for manufacturing and/or packaging. This includes the commodity volume contained within manufactured goods sold by retailers.
• Production volume: refers to the volume of commodity produced by your company, i.e. commodity grown, reared or harvested within owned/managed land.
• Third-party certification: when a certification process is carried out by an independent organization.

Additional information

• The following options are considered 'credible', but their selection is not considered to meet the standard of 'best practice': 'RSPO Credits/Book & Claim', 'RTRS Credits', 'FSC (any type)', 'RSPO (any type)', 'RTRS (any type)'.

Example response

Row 2

Control systems

(F6.4) For your disclosed commodity(ies), do you have a system to control, monitor, or verify compliance with no conversion and/or no deforestation commitments?

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes’ in response to F4.5 and/or F4.6.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Control systems and managing non-compliance are critical to the implementation of forests-related policies and commitments. Companies can demonstrate that they are accountable for their direct operations and supply chain, and that they are making quantitative progress towards the implementation of their no conversion and/or deforestation commitments. In the case that non-compliance is identified, companies need to disclose the process to resolve these issues and mitigate forests-related risks.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• It is acknowledged that organizations can have several assurance systems in place to control, monitor or verify compliance.
• This could include, but is not limited to, supplier engagement, traceability systems, purchase control systems, third party certification schemes, monitoring and verification, jurisdictional approaches, satellite-based early warning systems, and grievance mechanisms.
• All these systems can be used to ascertain compliance or detect non-compliance with no conversion and/or no deforestation commitments.

A system to control, monitor, or verify compliance (column 2)

• The focus of the question is on whether a system is in place to ascertain compliance or detect non-compliance with no conversion and/or no deforestation commitments. These commitments should be consistent with your selection of "No conversion of natural ecosystems", "Zero gross deforestation / no deforestation" and/or "Zero net deforestation" in F4.6b.
• If you do not have a no conversion and/or no deforestation commitment, but have a system in place, select "Yes, we have a system in place, but for other commitments" and provide more information in the Comment column (column 3).

Comment (column 3) (optional)

• Use the Comment column to provide an explanation on the reasons why your organization does not have a system in place or plans to adopt a system within the next two years.

Explanation of terms

• Control system: a system for assessing and managing the attributes of raw materials or products at their place of production and/or as they move through a supply chain (AFi, 2019).
• Grievance mechanism: any routinized process through which grievances concerning business-related negative impacts on human rights or the environment can be raised, and remedy can be sought.

-Grievance mechanisms may be State-based or non-State based and they may be judicial or non-judicial (AFi, 2019) .

(F6.4a) Provide details on the system, the approaches used to monitor compliance, the quantitative progress, and the non-compliance protocols, to implement your no conversion and/or deforestation commitment(s).

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select "Yes, we have a system in place for our no conversion and/or no deforestation commitments" in response to F6.4.

Change from last year

No change

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

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Requested content

General

• The origin of commodities should be known or controlled to a sufficient extent to ascertain compliance and/or determine the extent and nature of non-compliance with your forests-related commitments.

Forest risk commodity (column 1)

• Ensure that you respond to this question for all your disclosed forest risk commodity(ies) by adding at least one row for each commodity for which you selected ‘Yes, we have a system in place for our no conversion and/or deforestation commitments’ in F6.4.

Operational coverage (column 2)

• It is recommended that the system covers the entirety of a company’s operations, including its supply chain.
• If you select ‘Selected facilities, business and geographies’, please provide an explanation in column 9 (Please explain). For example, this option would be selected in cases where your control system only targets countries considered to be of higher risk.
• If your monitoring system applies to both your direct operations and your supply chain, disclose on both in a single row.

Description of control system (column 3)

• Provide a description of the control system for assessing and managing the compliance of raw materials or products at their place of production and/or as they move through a supply chain.

Monitoring and verification approach (column 4)

• Select the type(s) of monitoring and verification approaches you have in place to assess compliance with your no conversion and/or deforestation commitments and provide a description in column 9 (Please explain).
• To evaluate compliance with no-deforestation and no-conversion commitments, the monitoring and verification approach should quantify the area of deforestation, conversion, or other land use change within the supply chain since the cutoff date (as specified in F4.6b).
• It is acknowledged that certain control systems (such as third-party certification and sectoral initiatives) might fulfil some of the monitoring and verification needs. However, where gaps are found, companies should take complementary monitoring and verification to ensure that the company’s overall system is adequately credible and comprehensive.
• If none of the available options are suitable, select ‘Other, please specify’ and text box will appear for you to complete.

% of total volume in compliance (column 5)

• As a result of the monitoring and verification approach, please indicate the percentage of your total production and/or consumption volume in compliance with your no conversion and/or deforestation commitments.
• If your organization disclosed production and consumtion volumes in F1.5a, this percentage relates to the sum of both (production volume + consumption volume).

% of total suppliers in compliance (column 6)

• As a result of the monitoring and verification approach, please indicate the percentage of your total suppliers in compliance with your no conversion and/or deforestation commitments.

Response to supplier non-compliance (column 7)

• The appropriate response to supplier non-compliance will depend on the severity of a given non-compliance.
• Select all the response(s) that your organization has used to address non-compliance with suppliers.
• You can provide further details on the course of action your organization will take in the ‘Please explain’ column.

Procedures to address and resolve non-compliance with suppliers (column 8)

• Select the most appropriate procedure(s) for engaging with non-compliant suppliers.
• If none of the available options are suitable, or you would like to add another procedure, select ‘Other, please specify’ and specify your procedure.
• If you have a publicly available procedure for your response to supplier non-compliance you may attach it here (this is optional).

Please explain (column 9)

• Provide additional information on your organization’s monitoring and verification approach, including the monitoring frequency.
• Provide information on the criteria and thresholds used for assessing the severity of non-compliances.
• You should describe how your response to supplier non-compliance varies depending on the severity of the non-compliance.
• Report on the type of support the company offers to it suppliers to help them achieve compliance with no deforestation/no conversion commitments.

Explanation of terms

• Control system: a system for assessing and managing the attributes of raw materials or products at their place of production and/or as they move through a supply chain (AFi, 2019).
• Exclude (supplier): action by a buyer to end a purchasing relationship with a supplier (in the case of a prior or ongoing relationship) or to avoid purchasing from a given supplier (in the case of spot markets or lack of an ongoing purchasing relationship) (AFi, 2019).
• First-party verification: verification conducted by the company itself but carried out by personnel not involved in the design or implementation of the operations being verified (AFi, 2019).
• Monitoring: an ongoing function that uses systematic collection of data on specific metrics to assess and document the extent to which actions, progress, performance, and compliance are being carried out or achieved (AFi, 2019).
• Retain: the buyer continues purchasing product while engaging the supplier to resolve the non-compliance(s) (AFi, 2019).
• Second-party verification: verification conducted by a related entity with an interest in the company or operation being assessed, such as the business customer of a production/processing operation or a contractor that also provides services other than verification (AFi, 2019).
• Suspend (supplier): the buyer temporarily pauses purchasing from a supplier but continues to engage the supplier to resolve the non-compliance(s) (AFi, 2019).
• Third-party verification: verification conducted by an independent entity that does not provide other services to the company (AFi, 2019).

Additional information

• Examples of systems used to identify compliance are provided by the Accountability Framework initiative’s Operational Guidance on Supply Chain Management (AFi, 2019).
• Examples of monitoring and verification tools and indicative metrics for assessing deforestation and conversion are provided by the Accountability Framework initiative’s Operational Guidance on Monitoring and Verification (AFi, 2019).
• The DCF Regional Guidance outlines recommendations on control systems for those involved in cattle and soy supply chains in key regions of South America (DCF, 2019).
• Key components of a supplier non-compliance protocol can be found in the Ceres Investor Primer on Non-compliance Protocols (Ceres, 2019).

Example response

Brazilian Forest Code

(F6.5) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate if you collect data regarding your own compliance and/or the compliance of your suppliers with the Brazilian Forest Code.

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select "Brazil" in column 5 ("Country/Area of origin") in response to F1.1 and if you select "Production", "Processing" and/or "Trading" in response to F0.4.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Tackling deforestation/forest degradation is highly important in tropical countries such as Brazil because they combine rich biodiversity and natural resources with high and fast rates of forest loss. It is important that organizations can demonstrate compliance with national legislation. Legality aspects are not only critical for producers but also of interest for procuring companies and investors as they might also be held co-responsible for impacts of the production of forest risk commodities. Given the clear and countrywide regulations established in Brazil – known as The Brazilian Forest Code - and the critical importance of this country for the global commodities market, there is an opportunity to easily track progress towards national regulation compliance in this country. This information provides context to investors and other data users regarding organizations’ due diligence and awareness of regulation compliance, both in their direct operations and/or their supply chain.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• For your disclosed commodity(ies), select the option most applicable with regards to collecting data on the Brazilian Forest Code.
• Provide details on the type of data you collect, the method of collection, and how often you collect it.
• Provide a detailed explanation of methods and technology used to collect the data.
• If you do not collect data from owned/managed land or from suppliers, or if you do not collect any data at all, please provide an explanation as to why not.

Additional information

• For an overview of the Brazilian Forest Code see WWF (2015), and for further information on assessing compliance with the Forest Code consult Proforest (2017).

(F6.5a) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you use to measure your own compliance with the Brazilian Forest Code and your performance against these indicator(s).

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes, from owned and/or managed land’ or ‘Yes, from both suppliers and owned/managed land’ in response to F6.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers details on the indicators used to measure compliance with the Brazilian Forest Code on land owned by your organization. This information provides context to investors and other data users regarding organizations’ due diligence and awareness of regulation compliance in their direct operations.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

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Requested content

General

• Select the check box for all KPIs that apply to each of your disclosed commodity(ies) and, if the data is available, provide specific performance information against the indicator in column 3 (Please explain).
• Definitions of all the Forest Code terms can be found in F1.4 under ‘Additional information’.

KPIs (column 2)

• Select “% of owned and/or managed properties registered on the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) database” if you track compliance with this legal requirement for your owned/managed properties. Registering properties on the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) database is an overarching requirement of the Forest Code, which specifies that all rural properties must be registered in the CAR by a specific deadline. The % is based on the total number of properties registered, not the total land area under control. Only properties with “active” status in the CAR database should be considered (i.e., when all information has already been submitted for review by governmental authorities). At the time of writing, the deadline for registration is December 31st, 2020 (see the law here).
• Select “% of owned and/or managed properties with Legal Reserve (RL) and/or Permanent Protected Area (APP) liabilities” if you track how many of your properties have environmental liabilities linked to the Forest Code that need to be remediated.
• As properties may remediate their environmental liabilities through the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) established by the Forest Code, select “% of owned and/or managed properties with signed Terms of Commitment of the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA)” if you track how many of your owned/managed properties with liabilities have adhered to PRA. Liable landowners are required by Brazilian law to have committed to the PRA by December 31st 2020. The % is calculated based on the number of properties with liabilities vs the number of properties that have adhered to PRA.
• Considering that Forest Code related non-compliance occurring after July 22nd 2008 cannot be remediated through PRA, select “% of owned and/or managed properties with no gross deforestation after July 2008” if you track how many of your properties had no gross deforestation, legal and/or illegal, after this date.
• Select "Other, please specify" – If you monitor any other KPI that you think is relevant and want to share it with CDP, please select this check box, and describe it in the ‘Please explain’ column.

Performance against indicators (column 3)

• Select your performance in terms of the percentage of owned/managed properties in compliance with each of the indicators reported in column 2 (KPIs).
• If you are not able to disclose your performance against the indicator, select “Data not available”.

Please explain (column 4)

• Provide a description of the technology and tools used to measure and monitor compliance against your KPIs
• Provide any details on how your organization measures/calculates the KPIs selected in column 2 (KPIs), indicate how often these KPIs are updated and specify any exclusion(s).
• If you selected ‘Other, please specify’ in column 2, describe your KPI here.
• If you selected ‘Data not available’ in column 3 (Performance against indicators), provide an explanation on why this is the case.

Explanation of terms

• Key Performance Indicator (KPI): a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objective
• Environmental Compliance Program or PRA (Brazilian Forest Code): defines the activities to be implemented within or outside the rural property to comply with the Brazilian Forest Code, including the conservation, reforestation or restoration of APPs, Restricted Use Areas, as well as the compensation of Legal Reserve areas (WWF, 2015).
• Legal Reserve or RL (Brazilian Forest Code): the proportion of the land on which native vegetation must be maintained in Brazil. Requirements for the proportion of land which must be set aside vary depending on the biome a municipality is officially located in: 50-80% in the Legal Amazon, 35% in the Cerrado, and 20% elsewhere (WWF, 2015).
• Permanent Protection Areas or APP (Brazilian Forest Code): under Brazilian law, there are areas which must be set aside such as river banks, watersheds and steep slopes. APP are physically and ecologically fragile and provide important environmental services. These areas vary between properties and may be allocated within the Legal Reserve (WWF, 2015).
• Rural Environmental Registry or CAR (Brazilian Forest Code): the central tool for rural properties to become compliant with the Brazilian Forest Code requirements. All rural property owners must register their lands in CAR, including the location of APPs, Legal Reserves, and other elements. CAR is regulated by the National System of Information on the Environment (SINIMA) (WWF, 2015).
• Terms of Commitment (Brazilian Forest Code): in Brazil, a formal document signed by the rural landowner in which he or she commits to redress the environmental deficit of the property, including, at least, commitments to conserve, reforest or restore APPs, Legal Reserves and Restricted Use Areas. Legal Reserve areas may be restored or compensated (WWF, 2015).

(F6.5b) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you use to measure the compliance of your suppliers with the Brazilian Forest Code and their performance against these indicator(s).

Question Dependencies

This question only appears if you select ‘Yes, from suppliers’ or ‘Yes, from both suppliers and owned/managed land’ in response to F6.5.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers details on the indicators used to measure compliance with the Brazilian Forest Code on land owned by your suppliers. This information provides context to investors and other data users regarding organizations’ due diligence and awareness of regulation compliance in their supply chain.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table. You can add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.

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Requested content

General

• The use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used to measure the level of compliance with the Forest Code by suppliers. Select the check box for all KPI's that apply and, if the data is available, provide specific performance information against the indicator(s) in the ‘Please explain’ column.

KPIs (column 2)

• Select “% of suppliers registered on the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) database, with active status” if you track compliance with this legal requirement for your suppliers. Registering properties on the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) database is an overarching requirement of the Forest Code, which specifies that all rural properties must be registered in the CAR by a specific deadline. The % is based on the total number of properties registered, not the total land area under control. Only properties with “active” status in the CAR database should be considered (i.e., when all information has already been submitted for review by governmental authorities). At the time of writing, the deadline for registration is December 31st, 2020 (see the law here).
• Select “% of suppliers with Legal Reserve (RL) and/or Permanent Protected Area (APP) liabilities” if you track how many of your suppliers have environmental liabilities linked to the Forest Code that need to be remediated.
• As properties may remediate their environmental liabilities through the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) established by the Forest Code, select “% of suppliers with signed Terms of Commitment of the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA)” if you track how many of your suppliers (with liabilities) have adhered to PRA. Liable landowners are required by Brazilian law to have committed to the PRA by December 31st 2020. The % is calculated based on the number of properties (with liabilities) vs the number of properties that have adhered to PRA.
• Considering that Forest Code related non-compliance occurring after July 22nd 2008 cannot be remediated through PRA, select “% of suppliers with no gross deforestation after July 2008” if you track how many of your supplier had no gross deforestation, legal and illegal, after this date.
• Select “Other, please specify” – if you monitor any other KPI that you think is relevant and want to share it with CDP, please select this check box, and describe it in the ‘Please explain’ column.

Perfomance against indicators (column 3)

• Select your performance in terms of the percentage of suppliers in compliance with each of the indicators reported in column 2 (KPIs).
• If you don’t measure your performance against the reported indicators, select ‘Data not available’.

Please explain (column 4)

• Provide details of the size of your supply base in Brazil in terms of the number of suppliers for each reported commodity.
• Provide a description of the technology and tools used to measure and monitor compliance against your KPIs
• Provide details on how your organization measures/calculate the KPIs selected in column 2 (KPIs), indicate how often these KPIs are updated and specify any exclusion(s).
• If you selected ‘Other, please specify’ in column 2, describe your KPI here.
• If you selected ‘Data not available’ in column 3 (Performance against indicators), provide an explanation on why this is the case.

Example response

Example of a company buying cattle products:

Legal compliance

(F6.6) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate if you assess your own compliance and/or the compliance of your suppliers with forest regulations and/or mandatory standards.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select one of the following as ‘Country/Area of origin’ in response to F1.1: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Viet Nam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question gathers data on whether your organization currently assesses compliance with forest laws and regulations in its own operations and/or supply chain. Assessment of applicable law(s) is an important aspect of social and environmental due diligence, and good practice amongst companies when acquiring lands and resources, expanding supply chain activities, and before entering into a supplier agreement. Applicable law(s) assessments are a good practice that promotes legal compliance in the countries/areas of origin of forest risk commodities.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• For your disclosed commodity(ies), select the option that best reflects your approach for assessing compliance with forest regulations and/or mandatory standards.
• This includes compliance with laws and regulations in owned and/or managed land, in the case of producers, and/or assessment of legal compliance in your supply chain operations (direct and/or indirect suppliers).
• This question is only about legal compliance in forest risk countries. If the disclosed commodity is not sourced from or produced in these jurisdictions, select ‘No, we do not produce in/source from forest risk countries'.

Comment (column 3) (optional)

• Use the Comment column to provide an explanation on the reasons why your organization does not have a system in place or plans to adopt a system within the next two years.

Explanation of terms

• Legal compliance (with forest regulations and/or mandatory standards): involves adhering to the rules prescribed by government which regulate the use, protection and/or conservation of forests. Regulations encompass tenure and use rights, protected areas, sustainable forest management and compliance with trade and customs laws. Mandatory standards require compliance from all relevant companies within a jurisdiction, as with the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) standard which applies to all oil palm growers operating in Indonesia (adapted from the Forest Legality Initiative and SPOTT).

Additional information

• For further guidance on the assessment of legal compliance with laws and regulations, please refer to AFi Annex 1: Introduction to applicable law assessments.

(F6.6a) For your disclosed commodity(ies), indicate how you ensure legal compliance with forest regulations and/or mandatory standards.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select “Yes, from suppliers”, “Yes, from suppliers and/or managed land” or “Yes, from both suppliers and owned/managed land” in response to F6.6.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

This question allows companies that are already assessing compliance from sourcing regions to report their efforts on this. CDP recognizes the high complexity of laws and regulations around the forest and agricultural space and therefore requests that you disclose the extent of any practices currently used. This information provides context to investors and other data users regarding the organization’s awareness and due diligence of legal compliance, in both direct and supply chain operations.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 3: Specification of commitments

Core Principle 5: Supply chain assessment and traceability

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 11: Monitoring and verification

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• This question is focused on the mechanisms your organization has in place to ensure legal compliance linked to forest risk commodities you produce or consume. This can relate to specific laws from the country(ies) where the commodities are produced, laws from consumer countries (e.g. US Lacey Act) or international law (e.g. CITES).

Procedure to ensure legal compliance (Column 2)

• Describe the tools and methods used by your organization to ensure that forest risk commodities you produce and/or source are compliant with forest regulations and mandatory standards from your respective countries of origin or from consumer countries (e.g. EU Timber Regulation).
• If your assessment prioritizes certain national or subnational jurisdictions based on higher deforestation risk, provide an explanation. You will be able to indicate the country(ies) in column 3 (Country/Area of origin).

Law or mandatory standards (column 4)

• Indicate which laws and/or mandatory standards your organization considers when assessing compliance aspects.
• If all or part your process for ensuring legal compliance does not focus on specific laws, select “General assessment of legal compliance".
• If any law and/or mandatory standard your organization considers is not listed, select "Other, please specify" and a text box will appear for you to complete.

Comment (column 5) (optional)

• Use the Comment column to provide an explanation on the reasons why your organization does not have tools, methods or plans to assess forest regulations compliance within the next two years.

Explanation of terms

• Forest risk country: for the purposes of this questionnaire, a forest risk country is one of the following tropical and subtropical countries selected based on current and/or future deforestation risk (based on GCP, 2019; WWF, 2015 & TFA, 2019)

- Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Viet Nam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

• Legal compliance (with forest regulations and/or mandatory standards): involves adhering to the rules prescribed by government which regulate the use, protection and/or conservation of forests. Regulations encompass tenure and use rights, protected areas, sustainable forest management and compliance with trade and customs laws. Mandatory standards require compliance from all relevant companies within a jurisdiction, as with the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) standard which applies to all oil palm growers operating in Indonesia (adapted from the Forest Legality Initiative and SPOTT).

Additional information

• For further guidance on the assessment of legal compliance with laws and regulations, please refer to AFi Annex 1: Introduction to applicable law assessments.

Example Response

Please complete the following table:

Engagement

(F6.7) Are you working with smallholders to support good agricultural practices and reduce deforestation and/or conversion of natural ecosystems?

Change from last year

Modified guidance

Rationale

The production of forest risk commodities may offer an opportunity for engaging with local stakeholders to drive local economic development. It may also be the case the situation on the ground in many countries calls for work with smallholders to source raw materials sustainably. This question captures data on the extent of company engagement with smallholder farmers. This information allows investors and other CDP data users to assess corporate action towards sustainable supply chains. Through engaging with smallholders, an organization can increase the quantity and quality of its supply, improve its level of traceability, as well as reducing its procurement costs.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Goal 15: Life on land

AFi

Core Principle 4: Company systems and process to drive effective implementation

Core Principle 6: Managing for supply chain compliance

Core Principle 10: Collaboration for landscape and sectoral sustainability

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Smallholder engagement approach (column 4)

Requested content

General

• Properties under the control of smallholders include woodlots, plantations, and agricultural land under the management of local communities, indigenous peoples, families, growers, and/or ranchers. Typically, these smallholder properties will be managed for low-intensity harvesting of the forest risk commodities.
• If your organization works with smallholders that are either part of your supply base or outside of your supply base, please disclose information on any engagement activities your company performs.

Are you working with smallholders? (column 2)

• Indicate if you engage with smallholders for each of your selected commodities. This is not limited to smallholders that you source from. Engagement with smallholders from outside your value chain can be disclosed here.
• If you source from smallholders but do not engage with them, please select "No, not working with smallholders".
• If you do not source from smallholders and you do not engage with any outside of your value chain, select "Not applicable".
• If you are disclosing on palm oil and only source from either independent or scheme/plasma smallholders, then select the relevant option. If you source from both independent and scheme/plasma smallholders then select "Yes, working with smallholders" and provide a breakdown of each type of smallholder you engage with in the Please explain (column 6).