A new report warned that 85 per cent of financial institutions still do not have a publicly available policy for all four commodities at the highest risk of causing deforestation and called for regulation to limit finance's involvement in such activities. Cattle products like beef and leather, soy, timber, paper and pulp are believed to drive more than two-thirds of tropical deforestation.
The latest Forest 500 report, A Decade of Deforestation Data, from non-profit Global Canopy, also revealed that more than half (55 per cent) of the 150 surveyed financial institutions have yet to publish a single deforestation policy. This is the case for 30 per cent of non-financial companies. The study examined 350 companies linked to deforestation and 150 financial institutions funding them.
