This document summarizes a panel discussion on zero deforestation commitments and regime complexity. It includes: 1) Four presentations were given on various topics related to zero deforestation commitments, including their implementation in palm oil in Indonesia and the Brazilian Amazon. 2) Emerging questions were discussed around whether zero deforestation commitments disrupt existing sustainability standards, emphasize forests over other issues, and create new challenges for other actors. 3) International environmental regimes on deforestation often overlap and conflict, creating both risks like reduced accountability, and opportunities like innovations. Stronger coordination is needed between public and private actors.

1. PANEL
“Zero deforestation commodities and the dynamics of
regime complexity”
George Schoneveld, Pablo Pacheco, Marie-Gabrielle Picketty, Isabel Drigo,
and Paolo Cerutti
IASC 2017
July 12, Utrecht

2. Panel contributions
Presentation 1 – George Schoneveld
‘Environmentalizing’ corporate self-regulation: Externality problems arising from zero deforestation
commitments
Presentation 2 – Pablo Pacheco
The politics and practice of sustainability commitments: The case of palm oil in Indonesia
Presentation 3 – Marie-Gabrielle Piketty & Isabel Drigo
Zero-deforestation commitments in the Brazilian Amazon: Progress, limits and proposal for eco-efficient
landscapes through a jurisdictional approach
Presentation 4 – Paolo Cerutti
Inclusiveness, equity, and sustainability: Ideas needed for informal timber operators in sub-Saharan
Africa
Q & A

3. Source: Adapted from Global Forest Resources Assessment, FAO (2015)
Deforestation trends
Natural Forest Loss, 2000 - 2015
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
Naturalforestchange(inMha/yr)
2000-2005
2005-2010
2010-2015
-2.5
-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
Net annual forest change 2010-2015

4. 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Asia Africa Latin
America
Combined
Urban expansion
Infrastructure
Mining
Subsistence
agriculture
Commercial
Agriculture
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Asia Africa Latin
America
Combined
Livestock grazing
Fire
Woodfuel
Logging
Drivers of deforestation (2000-2010)
Drivers of forest degradation (2000-2010)
Source: Adapted from Hosonuma et al. 2012
Drivers of Deforestation
Livestock
62%
Soy
15%
Oil palm
6%
Sugarcane
4%
Cocoa
2%
Rubber
2%
Cotton
2%
Other
7%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Beef
Wood
Palm
Soy
Deforestation embedded in trade (2000-2012)
Deforestation embedded in production of
commercial agriculture commodities (2000-2012)
Source: Adapted from EC 2013

5. Regulatory initiatives to eliminate deforestation from supply chains
HardSoft
Private
Public
Multi

6. International regime complexity
• No coherent set of hierarchically imposed rules --> failure to develop conventions
• Parallel, conflicting, and overlapping rules and institutions
• Emerge to fill substantive or procedural gaps, regime shift, or create strategic
inconsistency
Risks Opportunities
Forum shopping Innovation
Rule downgrading Upwards convergence
Increasing transaction costs Systemic adaptive capabilities
Compliance barriers
Ambiguity and reduced accountability
Risks and opportunities of regime complexity

7. Emerging questions on ZDC and regime complexity
• Disruptive regulatory innovation challenging existing standards?
• Corporate strategy to promote a regime shift in favor of self-regulation?
• Excessive emphasis on forests reducing focus on issues such as food security,
smallholder VC inclusion, and other HCV? (e.g. demand for non-forest land driving
expansion onto cropland, wetlands, peatland, and reduce SH participation in GVS due
to high costs of monitoring and compliance support)
• New challenges emerging for other private and public actors to address externality
problems and support implementation? Regime reinvention?

8. Environmentalizing corporate self-regulation:
Externality problems arising from zero deforestation
commitments
George Schoneveld (CIFOR) and Peter Jopke (GIZ)
Presentation 1

9. Study Objectives
Identify governance challenges that need to be
overcome to better harness the sustainable
development potential of Corporate ZD through
analysis of:
1) Factors driving adoption of ZD commitments
2) Gaps in ZD commitments
3) Potential risks arising from failure to account
for negative social and environmental
externalities
4) Factors shaping good ZD commitments

10. Method
1. Identify full ZD committers from Forest Trends’ 250
commodity ‘power brokers’
• Commitment applicable to ALL geographies and
ALL operations
2. Development of hierarchical framework
• Expert consultation
3. Analyze performance of committers (51) across 41
indicators
• Corporate policies, strategies, reports,
interviews
4. Scoring by indicator (0, 0.5, 1), averaged, weighted
by criteria
Principle
1. Commitment to ZD (ZD)
2. Traceability and monitoring (ZD)
3. Reporting, transparency and third party
verification (ZD)
4. Smallholder support and inclusion (EXT)
5. Protection of valuable non-forest land (EXT)
6. Land justice (EXT)
7. Prevention detrimental ILUC (EXT)
HF principles
Substantive
scope
Implementation
mechanisms
Zero
Deforestation
7 indicators 9 indicators
Externalities 14 indicators 11 indicators
Types of indicators

11. Adoption trends
Commitment
(full)
20%
Commitment
(partial)
18%
No
Commitment
62%
25% 24%
8% 7%
Adoption rates, by commodity
38%
23% 15%
Adoption rates, by type of corporation
19/50 23/15710/43
16/68 9/1336/8041/163

12. Drivers of adoption
• Unsurprising results
• Northern companies, publically
listed more likely
• Companies involved in palm and
timber more likely
• Soy less likely
• Type of company little impact,
integrated marginally more likely
• Large companies not more likely

13. Zero deforestation commitment
HCS
72%
FSC
6%
PEFC
11%
None
11%Not time
bound
24%
2030
4%
2020
67%
In place
5%
Suppliers
fully adopt
ZD
27%
Suppliers
supply ZDC
65%
Not all
suppliers
ZD
8%
• Most commitments time-
bound (now – 2030)
• Only 3 companies explicit
cut-off dates; 11 implicit
• Adoption of accepted forest
definitions
• Palm and soy commitments
embrace HCS
• Wood FSC or PEFC
• Cattle most arbitrary
• Commitments mostly cover
suppliers
• But do not require suppliers
to be ZD free

14. Zero deforestation implementation
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Recognized
approach
Trace to
source
Geo-spatial
monitoring
All met
No
Yes
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Annual
reporting
Sourcing
locations
disclosed
Independent
verification
All met
No
Yes
• Strong commitment to full adoption of traceability
systems
• Weak commitment to plantation-level traceability --
> mills suffice
• Rely on supplier declarations
• Limited commitment to disclosing sourcing
locations or reporting progress
• Limited commitment to independent verification of
performance
• Challenging for monitoring groups to evaluate
progress and hold companies to account
• Limited adherence to ZD certification systems (e.g.
SAN, RSPO Next)
Traceability and monitoring
Transparency and independent verification

15. Externality commitment
• Widespread adherence to HCV and
FPIC for wood and oil palm
• No peat conversion in oil palm
• No explicit commitment to maintaining
smallholder supply base
• Only few companies commit to
supporting smallholder compliance
• No explicit recognition of ILUC,
protection forest estate
• Food security protection function of
FPIC 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
HCV protection
FPIC
Peatland protection
Support smallholders
No forest off-loading
Prevention of ILUC
Protect food security
Yes
No
Commitment to safeguards

16. Externality implementation
• Implementation FPIC, HCV indicators
indirectly (baseline, monitoring,
management plans)
• HCSA further enables integration FPIC-
HCV-HCS
• Emphasis partial segregation/MB
reduces capacity to monitor suppliers
• No R&R, food security baselines and
plans, ILUC safeguards
• No explicit strategies on supporting
smallholders
• Only independent verification pledged
by 27% of ‘no peat’ adopters
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
No full commitment
Partially segregated/mass
balance/Greenpalm
Fully segregated

17. Overall performance
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Palm Soy Wood Cattle Total
Commitment
Implementation
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Palm Soy Wood Cattle Total
Commitment
Implementation
ZD performance, by commodity Externality performance, by commodity

18. Performance determinants
Naïve regression (DV=Score of commitment substance) Naïve regression (DV=Score of implementation mechanisms)

19. Implications for governance
• Efforts to develop coherent ZD rules (HCSA, SPOM) and integrate into
certification (RSPO NEXT, SAN, ISCC) --> innovation, upward convergence
• Little apparent corporate interest in comprehensive co-regulation
• Lack of commitment to smallholders, weak integration of food security, and no
consideration for ILUC
• Challenging to address through certification due to its supply chain orientation
• Territorial/landscape approaches to address spillovers
• More prominent role of state institutions required (e.g. LUP, tenure security)

20. Thank you.