New report provides a data driven description of the forest sector’s many contributions to the realization of the SDGs

Twelve leading member companies from the Forest Solutions Group (FSG) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have issued the first Implementation Report of the Forest Sector SDG Roadmap (SDG Roadmap) released in July 2019. The report provides evidence of FSG members’ commitment to implementing the actions in the SDG Roadmap, takes stock of the status of implementation of the different actions among FSG members, and sets a baseline against which to track progress over time.

With this first Implementation Report, FSG members are holding themselves accountable to driving progress on the commitments made in the SDG Roadmap. For that, the joint vision of the SDG Roadmap was translated into meaningful actions within eight impact areas, such as Working forests, Climate, the Bioeconomy or Communities. These actions are tied to key performance indicators, allowing to assess the status of implementation and reveal the sectors areas of strength and weakness. For example, the report describes how the forest sector is in a key position to scale-up positive impacts in areas such as climate change mitigation through carbon storage in forests and products, as well as biodiversity and ecosystems conservation within the 10 million hectares of forests that FSG members cumulatively own, manage or lease. Other areas, such as water management, call for diligent risk management approaches to minimize or eliminate negative impacts at local and catchment levels.

This is the first of two reports that FSG will publish at regular intervals to track progress on the implementation of the Roadmap, as part of the journey to 2030. In addition, FSG will continue to track and disclose progress annually through key performance indicators.

Companies involved in the work include Aditya Birla Group, Campbell Global, CMPC, Hancock Natural Resource Group, International Paper Company, Mondi Group, New Forests, PMI, Smurfit Kappa Group, Stora Enso, Sumitomo Forestry and The Navigator Company.

Andrew King, CEO Mondi Group and Co-Chair of FSG highlighted that “The ambitions of the SDGs rely on cross-sector partnerships to scale positive contributions. The implementation report provides a holistic and data-driven assessment of the forest sector’s connections with global development issues such as climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. By highlighting strategic impact opportunities, we can enable more targeted action across the full forest sector value chain.”

Francisco Ruiz-Tagle, CEO of CMPC added that “Just over a year from the release of the Forest Sector SDG Roadmap, FSG members are again demonstrating leadership in driving sustainable development in the forest sector. In the Implementation report FSG has translated the shared vision of the Roadmap into meaningful and measurable action. By providing full transparency on the methodology FSG hopes to enable others across the forest sector value chain to follow suit.”

Filippo Veglio, Managing Director & Senior Management Team, WBCSD highlighted that: “The coming decade represents a critical window of opportunity to drive the actions and solutions that will be needed to realize the transformative ambitions of the SDGs. FSG has displayed important leadership on this front, not only in developing a roadmap that plots a series of tangible pathways towards maximizing SDG impact, but also now with this Implementation Report, a bold exercise in transparency and accountability that underlines the sector’s ongoing commitment to contributing to the SDGs.”