The Nestlé Cocoa Plan has today released its Towards Forest Positive Cocoa Annual Progress Report 2022, the third report of its kind in as many years.
The report details Nestlé’s progress towards a deforestation-free cocoa supply chain by 2025 – in line with the company’s Forest Positive strategy and commitment to source 100% sustainable cocoa by 2025.
Deforestation remains one of the pressing issues facing the cocoa sector, especially in West Africa. In 2017, Nestlé joined the public-private Cocoa & Forests Initiative to help end deforestation and restore forests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. In March 2019, the company published a detailed action plan to support these collective efforts.
Nestlé’s achievements so far include:
• Mapping over 125 000 farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana – well in excess of the original 2022 target
• Distributing over one million forest and fruit trees to farmers in 2021, to drive agroforestry and regenerative agriculture, bringing the total distributed to more than 2.2 million trees
• Cumulatively training more than 90 000 farmers in good agricultural practices
• Replanting more than 366 hectares of Cavally Forest Reserve in 2021 as part of a CHF 2.5 million investment in protecting and restoring the forest
• Ramping up our community and reforestation efforts in Beki and Bossemati forests – a key wildlife corridor – reforesting 43 hectares and reaching 5 000 farmers and their families with community awareness-raising sessions
• Successfully running a pilot for small-scale community and sacred forest conservation in Toa Zèo. This approach successfully protected and reforested several small woodlands (between 1 and 16 hectares). It is a model which will now be rolled out to multiple cocoa-farming communities in partnership with the Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Waters and Forests (MINEF)
Nestlé will continue to work with all stakeholders to help protect and restore forests, promote sustainable cocoa production and thriving communities, aiming to create a forest positive future for all.
For further reading and previous disclosures related to forest conservation and restoration, please see the 2021 and 2020 Tackling Deforestation Reports.