On 2 July, Trase presented its Yearbook 2020, which aimed to address four key issues: 1) how is agricultural expansion linked to deforestation; 2) who is buying forest commodities and from where; 3) what are the greatest sources of deforestation risk in the supply chains of major commodity buyers; and 4) what is the coverage of zero-deforestation commitments and what impacts are they having.
During the launch, Trase presented the several interesting key findings:
Focusing on the Amazon, Cerrado, and Chaco where deforestation, Trace researchers confirmed a direct correlation between expansion of cattle pastures and soy, with cattle pastures being the dominant causes of deforestation across all three aforementioned areas in 2018, i.e. 95% in Paraguay, 81% in Chaco, and 54% in Cerrado.
Trase found that the market share of dominant trading companies is generally proportionate to their share of deforestation risk, although smaller traders can have disproportionate impacts as well.
Coverage of zero-deforestation commitments is increasing, although significant gaps remain in certain industries. Companies with the highest risk exposure per tonne often lack commitments, and at the moment, there is still no clear difference in risk exposure between committed and non-committed companies.
Source: Trase (2020)