A major reduction in global deforestation is needed to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. Recent private sector commitments aim to eliminate deforestation from a company's operations or supply chain, but they fall short on several fronts. Company pledges vary in the degree to which they include timebound interventions with clear definitions and criteria to achieve verifiable outcomes. Zero-deforestation policies by companies may be insufficient on their own to achieve broader impact due to leakage, lack of transparency and traceability, selective adoption, and smallholder marginalization. Public-private policy mixes are needed to increase the effectiveness of supply-chain initiatives aimed at reducing deforestation. We review current supply-chain initiatives, their effectiveness, the challenges they face, and identify knowledge gaps for complementary public-private policies.

SignificanceDemand for agricultural commodities is the leading driver of tropical deforestation. Many corporations have pledged to eliminate forest loss from their supply chains by purchasing only certified “sustainable” products. To evaluate whether certification fulfills such pledges, we applied statistical analyses to satellite-based estimates of tree cover loss to infer the causal impact of a third-party certification system on deforestation and fire within Indonesian oil palm plantations. We found that certification significantly reduced deforestation, but not fire or peatland clearance, among participating plantations. Moreover, certification was mostly adopted in older plantations that contained little remaining forest. Broader adoption by oil palm growers is likely needed for certification to have a large impact on total forest area lost to oil palm expansion.

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