Breakout Session

1. How are companies tracking progress in their supply chains on paper, packaging, and timber deforestation-free goals? Over the last five years, brands have made wide-ranging commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. To achieve this, companies need to collect supply chain information to assess deforestation risk, as well as to track how much of their supply can be assured as deforestation free. While companies need similar data points, they risk reinventing the wheel and overburdening suppliers without sufficient pre-competitive collaboration. More importantly, companies need to focus time and effort on remediating risk areas, rather than collecting and manipulating data in inefficient ways. Increasingly, companies are using the same information network to gather supply chain information, and by doing so are achieving multiple pre-competitive goals, including tracking, tracing, and reporting, reducing supplier survey fatigue, and motivating supplier engagement and improvement. What types of information are companies collecting and how far upstream in the supply chain do they trace? What do companies do when they find a supplier or source that is out of compliance or at risk of deforestation? How can the world’s first flexible, shared data network for supply chain assessment and traceability support company efforts by harmonizing industry-wide assessment approaches? How is this network being used to address other deforestation-related commodities? SupplyShift, Jamie Barsimantov, COO 2. The future is sustainable rubber: Transforming the global rubber market and tire supply chain About 75 % of the natural rubber in the world is for the use of automotive industries. In southeast Asia, where 90% of world’s rubber is sourced, demand has translated into land grabs and deforestation, according to WWF. But the world's biggest tire manufacturers are embracing new procurement policies that are shifting the industry towards “zero deforestation” commitments. Pirelli has adopted a 12-point sustainable natural rubber supply-chain policy to preserve forests and to develop local communities and economies. In this session, a senior Pirelli executive will talk about the company’s implementation journey, stakeholder engagement process and cross sector collaborations to tackle the impacts of this complex value chain system. Pirelli, Eleonora Pessina, group sustainability officer Global Witness, Lela Stanley, policy advisor, Asia forest team 3. Debate: Separating facts from myths – can wood chip biomass energy production ever be sustainable? Biomass power plants use plants and organic material to produce energy. The sector claims it has massive potential for providing the world with a sustainable, low-carbon energy. But how do these claims stack up? With source fuels in the form of wood chips, pellets or biogas, bioenergy can also help to decarbonize domestic and commercial heating. According to Enviva, a study by Duke University and North Carolina State University, increasing demand for wood pellets has led to the development of more US forests and investments in US forestry. Discussion is now centering on whether biomass energy can be sustainable at scale, for example if source fuel has to be transported large distances. When is wood chip sourcing a sustainable energy and when is it an unsustainable energy source? What sustainability criteria are needed to help ensure biomass has lowest carbon impact? What the science actually says about wood biomass as a sustainable energy source. How companies, NGOs and other actors can collaborate to make the supply chain sustainable. Dogwood Alliance, Adam Colette, program director