Private and public sector initiatives around sustainable supply chains are highly complementary to REDD+. They offer opportunities, in addition to the carbon market, for the private sector to engage on ways to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, thereby also reducing carbon emissions.
These initiatives are addressing directly agricultural expansion, the major driver of deforestation, through supply chain interventions (e.g. certification, supply chain transparency), investments (e.g. risk assessments) and through establishing the enabling environment to guarantee sustainable commodity sourcing and production (e.g. land-use planning, impact monitoring, public-private partnerships). As such, these initiatives support efforts to reduce deforestation and implement REDD+ and Nationally Determined Contributions under the UNFCCC.
In turn, ongoing REDD+ investments are mainly focused on: building stakeholder capacities; systems for monitoring, reporting and verification; increased understanding of drivers; national strategies; land-use planning; clarification of tenure, etc. These are all very valuable to assist countries in progressing on their low carbon and sustainable growth agendas, which may include sustainable commodity sourcing and production.
In fact, sustainable supply chain approaches, primarily driven by the private sector, do not always have the leverage to initiate the necessary land-use governance reforms, hence the need for complementary REDD+ (result-based) incentives and approaches. Policy coherence between REDD+ incentives and broader development finance, trade and investments are therefore important to ensure they complement and mutually enforce each other in achieving deforestation objectives. In parallel to measures and reforms in the country of commodity production, demand-side interventions in consumer countries are required, to build greater market share for sustainably produced commodities.