Halting global deforestation

01 May 2017

As part of our Sustainability Plan, we've committed to ensure that our own brand products do not contribute to global deforestation and over the years we've taken many steps to achieve this ambition.

Pledging to help save the Cerrado

On the 25th October 2017, we were one of 23 global companies to launch a statement of support for the objectives of the Cerrado Manifesto; a call to action to halt deforestation and native vegetation loss in Brazil's Cerrado.

Since then, support for the Cerrado Manifesto has nearly tripled, with all signatories committing to work collaboratively with local and international stakeholders to promote resilient agricultural practices. The next step is to form a working group that will develop a roadmap and implementation plan to support the objectives of the Cerrado Manifesto.

"We're proud to be one of the first signatories of the Cerrado Manifesto, and are delighted to work alongside the new signatories to help halt deforestation in Cerrado, Brazil."

Mike Coupe, Chief Executive, Sainsbury's Group

Despite its significant environmental and economic value, the Cerrado is vulnerable to the clearing of forests and native vegetation for agricultural production, particularly soy.

Although our customers do not consume large amount of soy directly - we recognise that it's embedded in our food supply chains and believe that we can play a key role in supporting sustainable development in soy producing regions.

of our planet's biodiversity is found in the Cerrado

Sourcing sustainably

We’re working hard to make sure our key raw materials do not contribute to global deforestation and are making good progress in this area. For example, we were named in the top band of UK companies in the WWF’s 2017 Timber Scorecard for sustainable sourcing of timber and timber products, and over 93% of timber and 98% of palm oil used in our own brand products was sourced sustainably in 2016/17.