Carbon Disclosure Project och Forest Footprint Disclosure Project slår ihop för att skapa världens största system för rapportering av naturkapital - carbon, vatten och skog

Paul Simpson, CEO på CDP säger: “Investerare och företag blir allt mer medvetna om i vilken utsträckning deras värdekedjor påverkas av begränsade naturresurser som leder till ökad volatilitet och risk för avbrott I verksamheten. Att föra skogar, som är kritiskt kopplade till både klimat och vattensäkerhet, i CDP-systemet gör det möjligt för företag och investerare att förlita sig på en källa av primär information för dessa relaterade frågor.”

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) och Global Canopy Programme (GCP) tillkännagav idag en allians som kommer att se GCP: s Forest Footprint Disclosure Project (FFD) slår ihop med CDP under de kommande två åren. För första gången kommer företagsinformation på jordens atmosfär, vatten och skog samlas under ett tak, vilket resulterar i världens mest omfattande system för rapportering av naturkapital.

Fortsättning på englelska:

Andrew Mitchell, executive director of GCP and chairman of FFD said: “Companies around the world have huge impacts on forests, whether they know it or not. Destroying forests contributes around 15% of global carbon emissions and undermines the ability of the world to feed itself by degrading land and harming water supplies.  By bringing forest disclosure together with carbon and water, we’re going to be making it easier for companies to understand how they are impacting on the world’s natural capital – and how they can do something about it.  Just ahead of the Rio Earth Summit I’m delighted that we’ve announced this exciting alliance and I look forward to working with CDP to help protect the earth’s natural capital.”

A major focus of the Rio+20 Earth Summit will be how to account for the way businesses use the planet’s natural capital as the world seeks a common pathway to a green economy. Today’s announcement marks an important step towards greater convergence of environmental data, helping businesses and their investors better understand how they impact or use critical natural capital in their operations and supply chains. This will form an essential part of valuing and managing business processes in the global green economy.

Ian Cheshire, group chief executive of Kingfisher said: "Kingfisher welcomes the merger between CDP and FFD. Bringing carbon, water and forests together within CDP’s system has great benefits in helping companies engage with broader natural capital sustainability issues and driving improved efficiencies in the corporate reporting process. It also supports companies in communicating their progress around the use of natural capital in their operations and supply chains to investors. ”

Freddie Woolfe, manager - corporate engagement, at Hermes Equity Ownership Services said: “Hermes Equity Ownership Services welcomes the significant development for environmental impact disclosure requests in bringing Forest Footprint Disclosure under the CDP umbrella. There is a clear benefit to investors in having a single source for information relating to a significant portion of companies’ environmental footprints.”

Matthew Hale, environment executive, Europe and Emerging Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said: “We supported both the CDP and FFD at their beginnings, and are very pleased to see them combining to broaden the important disclosure platform for companies around the world.  It’s a great example of the collaborative and integrated problem solving approach needed in addressing these complex issues.”

A transition process for FFD has already begun and CDP will begin managing FFD operations from February 2013 leading to full integration by February 2014. GCP will continue to act as key advisor on forests and forest risk commodities to the project. 

For more information please contact:

Carbon Disclosure Project

Lisa Lee

Lisa.lee@cdproject.net /  +44 7554 430962

Website: www.cdproject.net / Twitter: @cdproject

Global Canopy Programme

Claire Barry

c.barry@globalcanopy.org /  +44 7939 844614

Website: www.globalcanopy.org and www.forestdisclosure.com

Twitter: @GlobalCanopy and @FFDproject

Notes to Editors

Note 1: Natural Capital: Ecological economists have borrowed the term 'capital' from the finance industry to help them describe the resources and ability of ecosystems to provide flows of goods and services relating to the natural environment such as fresh water, the climate and food. For example, much as an investor will use financial capital to generate profits, a stock of forest will provide a future flow of timber, which if used sustainably will provide long-term benefits to people. Natural Capital is the stock of ecosystems that yields a renewable flow of goods and services.

About CDP

Since it was founded 11 years ago, CDP has played a significant role in moving climate change up the business agenda into boardrooms. Its transformative global system for the measurement and disclosure of climate change information is now used by over 3,700 companies worldwide.  In recent years, CDP has extended its global disclosure platform to raise the critical issue of water management onto the corporate radar. It will now accelerate the disclosure and management of forest footprinting in thousands of global corporations, and drive investors to include responsible sourcing in company valuations.

CDP currently gathers data on behalf of 655 institutional investors holding US$78 trillion in assets and holds the largest collection of self reported climate change and water data. For more information visit www.cdproject.net.

About GCP

Global Canopy Programme (GCP) works to demonstrate the scientific, political and financial case for safeguarding tropical forests as natural capital essential to human wellbeing and economic prosperity. Its pioneering initiatives such as the Forest Footprint Disclosure Project, the Natural Capital Declaration, the Little Book Series, and the REDD Desk test innovative solutions to protect forests in a global economy that still values them more dead than alive. GCP is a not-for-profit research group and project incubator based in Oxford.                 

Deforestation is largely driven by demand for land to produce commodities such as soy, palm oil, biofuels, timber and cattle products used by companies and their supply chains. Recognising this as an often unseen risk to shareholder value, GCP launched FFD in 2009, successfully engaging key companies and their investors worldwide to understand and address their exposure to these ‘forest risk commodities’. Today, investors with over USD $7 trillion in assets under management now back the FFD. For further information visit www.globalcanopy.org and www.forestdisclosure.com.