Ending tropical deforestation is critical to achieving the objectives of both the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. First though, it requires a substantive transformation of the supply chains of four major commodities – beef, soy, palm oil and pulp and paper. These are increasingly sourced from tropical forest regions, where their production has contributed catastrophically to deforestation.

The production of these commodities in tropical forest countries is worth roughly US$ 180 billion annually, and transforming their supply chains to full sustainability is an investment opportunity to the tune of roughly $200 billion a year, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum and Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, an opportunity that the financial sector can embrace by scaling up emerging models of deforestation-free finance.