AFI impacts

For me as a key project lead, the Framework provides guidance and assurance that we are moving in the right direction. I can use it to interact with internal and external stakeholders and to drive and focus discussions on sustainability issues that matter most.

The Accountability Framework has provided us with a valuable basis to deal with risks in forest and agriculture value chains. The self-assessment tool in particular helped us to benchmark our activities against best practices.

The Accountability Framework can help everyone to speak the same language, making it faster and easier for all of us to deliver on commitments.

The AFi set the bar for the level of accountability that environmental NGOs expect from forest product companies. This has helped make the case for a more detailed assessment of paper mills, through direct visits, in potentially high-risk areas.

CDP is a member of the AFI coalition, and since 2019, has specifically designed the Forests Questionnaire around the AFi principles and terminology and guidance. Companies familiar with the AFi will be better able to report to, and score well on, the CDP questionnaire, and companies completing the questionnaire will be simultaneously reporting against the Framework.

We see an opportunity to use the Accountability Framework as a litmus test to check some of the commitments that the private sector has made.

It meant that we didn’t have to hash out all of the definitions right then and there and could focus instead on key principles. It was that powerful.

Having an AFi-inspired and informed deforestation- and conversion-free by 2025 commitment serves as foundational element that makes it easy to take on other things. Because of that foundation, we’re ready when it comes to SBTi FLAG targets, SBTN Land targets, regulatory compliance, and disclosures like CDP and Forest 500. It gives us a step in the right direction on all of those and makes them less daunting. Having a Framework-aligned commitment drives value across many different sustainability platforms.

The Accountability Framework provides a common baseline that makes it simpler for companies to understand what they need to do in response to major environmental issues, and easer for conservation groups to align around a common approach.

The Accountability Framework provided Neste with a good opportunity to align and benchmark our commitments and policies against a global standard covering various commodities. It also inspired us to continue to further develop our sustainability agenda, such as grievance management, as well as auditing and verification of suppliers.

[The UK Roundtable on Responsible Soya and AFi definitions] helped to bring industry together in the same room and move forward, confident that we were taking an approach consistent with other global actors and markets.

The Framework offers some practical guidance about how you can make progress on a difficult task: eliminating deforestation in your supply chain.

The Accountability Framework will enable companies to feel confident that the actions they are taking to address deforestation and conversion will satisfy their stakeholders’ expectations and have a positive impact.