Why corporate sustainability initiatives fail to reduce deforestation and what to do about it

Abstract

Deforestation is a complex environmental problem that has eluded a series of public policies and private-sector interventions. The need to develop effective solutions to this problem is urgent because unabated deforestation exacerbates climate change, biodiversity loss, human rights violations, displacement of Indigenous communities, and breakouts of zoonotic diseases. This paper focuses on corporate-led efforts to stop deforestation and identifies four reasons behind their failure: global trade and supply-chain obscurity, power dynamics in supply chains, neglected consumption in emerging economies, and diluted goal setting. We call upon corporate sustainability scholars, specifically in entrepreneurship, marketing, strategy, and supply-chain management domains, to dedicate efforts to develop novel corporate sustainability initiatives that can address the complex, rampant, and stubborn challenge of deforestation. We propose three broad areas of research to advance scholarship on the role of corporate sustainability in stopping deforestation: zero-deforestation supply chains, zero-deforestation consumption, and nature-positive business models.