Unilever is to partner with U.S. tech company Orbital Insight on a pilot project to trace agricultural commodities sourced, especially palm oil. It claims to be using geolocation data and satellite imagery to identify the individual farms and plantations supplying the palm oil mills in its extended supply chain. The pilot project will be tested out at palm oils mills in Indonesia and soy mills in Brazil, working jointly with its established supply chain monitoring projects.

The UK government is backing the Tropical Forests Alliance (TFA) 2020. TFA 2020 is a business-led initiative launched by the US government and the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) which is a group of over 400 retailers and manufacturers. Although there are no regulatory implications, TFA 2020 aims to provide a forum ‘in which to share best practice with major private companies’ committed to adopting ‘sustainable supply chains’ and to ‘encourage other governments and companies to take similar steps’.

MPs and policymakers from 33 of the world’s major economies gathered at the first GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit in London. The Summit concluded with a pledge which recognises that forest loss contributes approximately 17 per cent of GHG emissions each year and commits the legislators to promote and advance the REDD+ mechanism in their own countries. REDD+ offers forest nations access to new finance in return for the development of effective and independently assessed forest protection schemes.