SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
WWF launches new impact platform that engages businesses and investors to deliver on sustainability ambitions
Published
4 years agoon

Nineteen companies and investors across sectors, ranging from major market actors alongside companies operating in important forest producing countries, are the first leading participants in WWF’s new multi-stakeholder impact platform designed to address deforestation and forest degradation in landscapes around the world.
Global demand for land, energy, and wood products is increasing while deforestation and forest degradation continue at an alarming rate. Meeting this growing demand while keeping forests intact requires bold solutions. Companies and investors worldwide are in a unique position to enable innovative approaches that conserve and enhance the benefits of biodiversity-rich, productive forest landscapes while meeting some of the biggest challenges of our time: climate change, water and food security and sustainable livelihoods.
WWF’s new Forests Forward platform aims to improve the management of 150 million hectares of forest by 2030, providing opportunities to create meaningful impact in landscapes and facilitating reporting on these impacts. It has a strong emphasis on indigenous people and local communities, which play a critical role in forest conservation with local models of governance that can help protect forests, often better than many other forms of forest stewardship.
Participants in Forests Forward can engage in areas such as sustainable forest and plantations management, responsible timber trade, better silviculture, reforestation and ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection and recovery, tackling illegality throughout the timber supply chain, credible forest certification, fair, inclusive and equitable value chains and investments in key landscapes. The programme is also developing a pipeline of land-use projects as part of WWF Bankable Nature Solutions. Through technical assistance to the origination and structuring of projects, participating companies in Forests Forward with a stake in plantations will implement the New Generation Plantations concept to conserve biodiversity and meet human needs, while contributing to sustainable economic growth and local livelihoods.
Julia Young, Global Lead for Forest Sector Transformation, WWF International says: “All actors with stakes in forests have an important role to play in embracing the full value of forests, not just for the timber they provide, but for the critical resources and services they supply to billions of people, the economy and nature. Forests Forward offers opportunities for transformative change, enabling companies to set and act on forward-looking, innovative pathways that make tangible impacts in forest landscapes, communities to benefit from the right incentives and approaches to sustainable forest management, and investors to make concrete, positive contributions to the global sustainability agenda. We welcome the first leading participants and look forward to engaging all stakeholders to improve the management of a targeted 150 million hectares of forests, as well as undertaking a rich diversity of actions to secure wider forest benefits for people and nature.”
Fran Price, WWF Global Forest Practice Lead, says: “We are at a critical juncture: more than ever, people understand how fundamental nature is to our lives and the importance of a sustainable future. Businesses and investors play a critical role in shaping this future. Forests are also one of the most important nature-based solutions. To tackle runaway climate change and realize global climate targets, we need greater action on deforestation, degradation and forest restoration. Forests Forward offers a unique platform to increase collaboration among diverse stakeholders, and boost innovation and solutions-oriented approaches to ensure forests continue to provide benefits to people and climate.”
The first set of businesses signing up to Forests Forward include major market actors HP Inc., IKEA, International Paper Company, Kimberly-Clark, Lowe’s Companies, Inc., Mandarin Oriental, Sofidel Spa, and Williams-Sonoma, Inc., alongside companies operating in important forest producing countries – Bois et Scierie du Gabon (BSG), Gabon Wood Industry (GWI), Companie des Bois du Gabon, Gabonaise d’Exploitation de Bois (GEB), Interholco, The ALPI Group, The New Forests Company, The Navigator Company, Stora Enso Oyj., Suzano S/A and Veracel.
Luigi Lazzareschi, CEO, Sofidel Group says: “We are pleased to participate in the Forests Forward program. For us it is an important way to once again strengthen our multi-stakeholder commitment to protect forests, preserve biodiversity, and meet human needs. Being part of this innovative platform will allow us to further expand and improve our efforts to help give people and the planet a positive future, contributing to the implementation of the long-awaited transformative change we all have to support.”
Ulrich Grauert CEO, Interholco says: “We are excited to partner with WWF in the Forests Forward programme, to turn sustainable hardwood made in Africa into a forest of solutions. Our engagement in this initiative will ensure sustainable management and protection of 1.1 million hectares of tropical forests as well as provide employment, infrastructure and economic development for the region we work in. Together, we want to make it possible for consumers to choose products that not only contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but also offer concrete solutions to the world’s environmental and social challenges. A small step globally, but for sure important for 16,000 forest inhabitants and for future-minded consumers who wish to take care of our children’s planet.”
Darren Lapp, CEO, The New Forests Company, says: “This is a very exciting time for the responsibly-managed forest industry in Sub Saharan Africa. Landscape carbon offset monetization is becoming a reality, which will provide another revenue line for companies and small-growers, multinationals are now abiding by their sustainability policies and sourcing certified timber, and many international partners, including WWF, are increasing their involvement in supporting integrated forest management concepts. We’ve never seen this level of positive engagement before.”
All participants’ scope of work can be followed on WWF’s global interactive spatial platform. Activities will be monitored and reported against clear outcomes and milestones.
For more information, visit: forestsforward.panda.org
Original Source: forestsforward.panda.org
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Top 10 agribusiness giants: corporate concentration in food & farming in 2025
Published
1 month agoon
August 28, 2025


Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share 19
|
1
|
Bayer (Germany)20
|
11,613
|
23
|
2
|
Corteva (US)21
|
9,472
|
19
|
3
|
Syngenta (China/Switzerland)22
|
4,751
|
10
|
4
|
BASF (Germany)23
|
2,122
|
4
|
Total top 4
|
27,958
|
56
|
|
5
|
Vilmorin & Cie (Groupe Limagrain) (France)24
|
1,984
|
4
|
6
|
KWS (Germany)25
|
1,815
|
4
|
7
|
DLF Seeds (Denmark)26
|
838
|
2
|
8
|
Sakata Seeds (Japan)27
|
649
|
1
|
9
|
Kaneko Seeds (Japan)28
|
451
|
0.9
|
Total top 9
|
33,695
|
67
|
|
Total world market29
|
50,000
|
100%
|
Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Syngenta (China/Switzerland)43
|
20,066
|
25
|
2
|
Bayer (Germany)44
|
11,860
|
15
|
3
|
BASF (Germany)45
|
8,793
|
11
|
4
|
Corteva (US)46
|
7,754
|
10
|
Total top 4
|
48,472
|
61
|
|
5
|
UPL (India)47
|
5,925
|
8
|
6
|
FMC (Germany)48
|
4,487
|
6
|
7
|
Sumitomo (Japan)49
|
3,824
|
5
|
8
|
Nufarm (Australia)50
|
2,056
|
3
|
9
|
Rainbow Agro (China)51
|
1,623
|
2
|
10
|
Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical Co., Ltd. (China)52
|
1,595
|
2
|
Total top 10
|
67,982
|
86
|
|
Total world market53
|
79,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Nutrien (Canada)72
|
15,673
|
8
|
2
|
The Mosaic Company (US)73
|
12,782
|
7
|
3
|
Yara (Norway)74
|
11,688
|
6
|
4
|
CF Industries Holdings, Inc, (US)75
|
6,631
|
3
|
Total top 4
|
46,774
|
24
|
|
5
|
ICL Group Ltd. (Israel)76
|
6,294
|
3
|
6
|
OCP (Morocco)77
|
5,967
|
3
|
7
|
PhosAgro (Russia)78
|
4,989
|
3
|
8
|
MCC EuroChem Joint Stock Company (EuroChem) (Switzerland/Russia)79
|
4,298
|
2
|
9
|
OCI (Netherlands)80
|
4,188
|
2
|
10
|
Uralkali (Russia)81
|
3,497
|
2
|
Total top 10
|
76,007
|
39
|
|
Total world market82
|
196,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Deere and Co. (US)89
|
26,790
|
15
|
2
|
CNH Industrial (UK/Netherlands)90
|
18,148
|
10
|
4
|
AGCO (US)91
|
14,412
|
8
|
3
|
Kubota (Japan)92
|
14,233
|
8
|
Total top 4
|
73,583
|
43
|
|
5
|
CLAAS (Germany)93
|
6,561
|
4
|
6
|
Mahindra and Mahindra (India)94
|
3,156
|
2
|
7
|
SDF Group (Italy)95
|
2,197
|
1
|
8
|
Kuhn Group (Switzerland)96
|
1,583
|
0.9
|
9
|
YTO Group (China)97
|
1,493
|
0.9
|
10
|
Iseki Group (Japan)98
|
1,057
|
0.6
|
Total top 10
|
89,629
|
52
|
|
Total world market99
|
173,000
|
100
|

Ranking
|
Company (Headquarters)
|
Sales in 2023
(US$ millions)
|
% Global market share
|
1
|
Zoetis (US)115
|
8,544
|
18
|
2
|
Merck & Co (MSD) (US)116
|
5,625
|
12
|
3
|
Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (Germany)117
|
5,100
|
11
|
4
|
Elanco (US)118
|
4,417
|
9
|
Total top 4
|
23,686
|
49
|
|
5
|
Idexx Laboratories (US)119
|
3,474
|
7
|
6
|
Ceva Santé Animale (France)120
|
1,752
|
4
|
7
|
Virbac (France)121
|
1,348
|
3
|
8
|
Phibro Animal Health Corporation (US)122
|
978
|
2
|
9
|
Dechra (UK)123
|
917
|
2
|
10
|
Vetoquinol (France)124
|
572
|
1
|
Total top 10
|
32,727
|
68
|
|
Total world market125
|
48,000
|
100
|

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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Maasai demand Volkswagen pull out of carbon offset scheme on their lands
Published
3 months agoon
July 24, 2025
Maasai Indigenous people in Tanzania have called on Volkswagen (VW) to withdraw from a controversial carbon credits scheme which violates their rights and threatens to wreck their livelihoods.
In a statement, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA) denounced the “loss of control or use” of vital Maasai grazing grounds, and accused VW of making “false and misleading claims” about Maasai participation in decision making about the project.
Many Maasai pastoralists have already been evicted from large parts of their grazing lands for national parks and game reserves, with highly lucrative tourist businesses operating in them. Now a major new carbon-credit generating project by Volkswagen ClimatePartner (VWCP) and US-based carbon offset company Soils for the Future Tanzania is taking control of large parts of their remaining lands, and threatening livelihoods by upending long-standing Maasai grazing practices.
The Maasai have not given their free, prior and informed consent for the project. They fear it will restrict their access to crucial refuge areas in times of drought, and threaten their food security.
Ngisha Sinyok, a Maasai community member from Eluai village, which is struggling to withdraw from the project, told Survival: “Our livestock is going to be depleted. We will end up not having a single cow.” Asked about VW’s involvement in the project, he replied, “It is not a solution to climate change. It is just a business for people to make money using our environment. It has nothing to do with climate change.”
Another Maasai man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said: “They use their money to control us.” A third said: “Maasailand never had a price tag. In Maasailand, there is no privatization. Our land is communal.”
Survival International’s Director of Research and Advocacy, Fiona Watson, said today: “The carbon project that Volkswagen supports violates the Maasai’s rights and will be disastrous for their lives, all so the company can carry on polluting and greenwash its image. It takes away the Maasai’s control over their own lands and relies on the false and colonial assumption that they are destroying their lands — which is not supported by evidence.
“The Maasai have been grazing cattle on the plains of East Africa since time immemorial. They know the land and how to manage it better than carbon project developers seeking to make millions from their lands.”
VW’s investment in the project, whose official name is the “Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project”, is believed to run to several million dollars, and has contributed to corruption and tensions in northern Tanzania, according to MISA’s report on the project.
An adjacent project in southern Kenya, also run by Soils for the Future, is beset with similar problems, and has already sparked resistance from local communities.
Survival International’s Blood Carbon report revealed that the whole basis for these “soil carbon” projects is flawed, and unsupported by evidence. Survival documented similar problems with the highly controversial Northern Kenya Grasslands Carbon Project. That project suffered a blow in a Kenyan court and was suspended and put under review by Verra, the carbon credit verification agency, for an unprecedented second time.
Source: Survival International
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Seizing the Jubilee moment: Cancel the debt to unlock Africa’s clean energy future
Published
3 months agoon
July 12, 2025
Africa has the resources and the vision for a just energy transition, but it is trapped in a financial system structured to take more than it gives. In this blog, we outline how debt burdens and climate impacts are holding the continent back, and looks at the role of institutions that shape the global financial order, like the World Bank, African Development Bank and IMF. As these institutions and governments meet in Seville for FfD4, we urge them to heed people’s calls for reform: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition. — By Rajneesh Bhuee and Lola Allen
With 60% of the world’s best solar energy resources and 70% of the cobalt essential for electric vehicle batteries, the African continent has everything it needs to power its development and become a global reference point for sustainable energy production. That potential, however, remains largely untapped; Africa receives just 2% of global renewable energy investment. As the UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan warns, too many countries are forced to “default on their development to avoid defaulting on their debt.”
The cost of servicing unsustainable debts, layered with new loan-based climate and development finance, leaves governments with little fiscal space to invest in clean energy, health or education. In 2022 alone, African countries spent more than $100 billion on debt servicing, over twice what they spent on health or education. Add to this the $90 billion lost annually to illicit financial flows, and the reality is stark: more money leaves the continent through financial leakages (also including unfair trade and extractive investment) than comes in through productive, equitable and development-oriented finance.
These are not isolated problems. They reflect a financial system that has been built to serve global markets rather than people. Between 2020 and 2025, four African countries defaulted on their external debts, that is, they failed to make scheduled repayments to creditors like the International Monetary Fund or bondholders, triggering fiscal crises and, in several cases, IMF interventions tied to austerity measures. Pope Francis’ Jubilee Report (2025) and hundreds of civil society groups argue that these defaults reflect the deeper crisis of unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, 24 more African countries are now in or near debt distress. None have successfully restructured their debts under the G20 Common Framework, a mechanism launched in 2020 to facilitate debt relief among public and private creditors. The Framework has been widely criticised for being slow, opaque and ineffective. According to Eurodad, without urgent systemic reforms, up to 47 Global South countries, home to over 1.1 billion people, face insolvency risks within five years if they attempt to meet climate and development goals.
How debt undermines the just energy transition
Debt has become both a driver and a symptom of climate injustice. Countries that did the least to cause the climate crisis now pay the highest price, twice over. First, they suffer the impacts. Second, they must borrow to rebuild.
This is happening just as concessional finance disappears. The US has withdrawn from the African Development Fund’s concessional window (worth $550m), yet maintains influence over private-sector lending. It has also opted out of the UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), a historic opportunity to confront the injustice of our financial system. Meanwhile, European governments, though now celebrating themselves as defenders of multilateralism, played a key role in weakening the outcome of FfD4, slashing aid budgets, redirecting funds toward militarisation, and systematically blocking proposals for a UN-led sovereign debt workout mechanism. With rising insecurity and geopolitical tensions, these actions send a troubling signal: at a moment when global cooperation is urgently needed, many Global North countries are stepping back from efforts to fix the very system that is preventing climate justice and clean energy for much of the Global South.
A role for the AfDB?
The African Development Bank (AfDB), under incoming president Sidi Ould Tah , has made progressive commitments of $10 billion to climate-resilient infrastructure and $4 billion to clean cooking. Between 2022 and 2024, one in five (20%) of its energy dollars were grants, far exceeding The World Bank ‘s 10% and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) ‘s 3.8%. The AfDB has also backed systemic reform: for example, calling for Special Drawing Rights (SDR) redistribution, launching an African Financial Stability Mechanism that could save up to $20 billion in debt servicing, and consistently advocating for fairer lending terms.

Yet, even progressive leadership struggles within a broken system. Recourse’s recent research shows that AfDB energy finance dropped 67% in 2024, from $992.7 million to just $329.6 million. Of this, a staggering 73% went to large-scale infrastructure like mega hydro dams and export-focused transmission lines, ‘false solutions’ that bypass the energy-poor and displace communities. Meanwhile, support for locally-appropriate, decentralised renewable energy systems such as mini-grids, solar appliances, and clean cookstoves plummeted by over 90%, from $694.5 million to just $61 million, with only five of 13 projects directly addressing energy access in 2024.
Africa received just 2.8% of global climate finance in 2021–22, and what is labelled as “climate finance” is often little more than a Trojan horse: resource-backed loans, debt-for-nature swaps, and blended finance instruments that shift risk to the public while offering little real benefit to local communities. These mechanisms, promoted as “innovative” or “green”, often entrench financial dependency and fail to deliver meaningful change for energy-poor or climate-vulnerable groups.
Meanwhile, initiatives that could build green industry and renewable capacity across Africa are falling short in both scale and speed. Flagship projects, such as the EU’s Global Gateway, have failed to drive green industrialisation in Africa, and carbon markets continue to delay real emissions reductions, subsidise fossil fuel interests, and entrench elite control over land and resources.
Mission 300: Ambition or another missed opportunity?
In this constrained context, the AfDB and World Bank launched Mission 300, an ambitious plan to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. Pragmatic goals like electrification are crucial, but the story beneath the surface of Mission 300 raises concern. Far from serving households, many projects under the initiative appear more aligned with export markets and large-scale energy users, echoing decades of infrastructure that bypasses those most in need.
Mission 300 can still be transformative, but only if it centres people, not profits. Energy access must begin with those who need it most: women and youth, especially in rural communities. Across Africa, many women cook over open fires, walk hours to gather fuel, and care for families in homes without light or clean air. This is not just an inconvenience, it is structural violence and policy failure.
Yet most energy finance still flows to centralised grids, mega-projects, and sometimes fossil gas (misleadingly called a “transition fuel”). These do little to address energy poverty. Locally appropriate decentralised renewable energy solutions, solar-powered appliances, clean cookstoves, and mini-grids can deliver faster, cheaper, and more equitable impact. Mission 300 must invest in such solutions, without adding to existing debt problems. It should support national policy design, for example, by ensuring that energy policy is responsive to women’s needs, making use of gender-disaggregated data and community consultation.
The Jubilee: A year for action
In a year already marked as a Jubilee moment, African leaders have demanded reform: including a sovereign debt workout mechanism and a UN Tax Convention to end illicit financial flows. Yet as AFRODAD has documented, these demands were blocked at the FfD4 negotiations by wealthy nations—notably the EU and UK—even as climate impacts grow and fiscal space shrinks.
This is not just about finance. It is about reclaiming sovereignty. The incoming AfDB president and all the multilateral development banks face a choice: continue financing extractive, large-scale projects that serve foreign interests, or invest in decentralised, gender-responsive, pro-people solutions that shift power and ownership.
Africa has the resources. What it needs is fiscal space, public-led finance, and global rules that prioritise people and planet over profit. The Jubilee call is clear: cancel the debt, redistribute the wealth, and fund the just transition.
Source: Recourse through LinkedIn Account Recourse.
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