BrasilAgro, a Brazilian rural real estate firm and soy producer, has plans to convert at least 10,000 hectares (ha) of Cerrado native vegetation for livestock and grain production, which include the drilling of several large-capacity wells. Chain Reaction Research has previously flagged the company’s clearing operations in Brazil and its associated business risks. BrasilAgro has …
Investors are continuing to urge governments and companies to take actions to conserve forests and curb commodity-driven deforestation. A group of NGOs and activist investors are currently putting together a sign-on letter in support of three key pieces of legislation in the United States that aim to decrease deforestation risks and human rights abuses in …
Agropalma SA, the largest exporter of palm oil in Brazil, is facing legal and reputational risks from being ordered to pay a fine due to poor working conditions on two farms in Tailândia, which is in northeast Pará. The Labor Court of Tucuruí (also located in Pará) ordered the company to pay just under 1 …
Deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea attributed to the development of oil palm plantations has fallen to its lowest level since 2017. In 2021, 19,000 hectares (ha) of forest and peat were cleared for oil palm plantation development. In 2018, the amount of land cleared increased to 74,000 ha, and in 2019, the …
Although West and Central Africa have been promising regions for large-scale palm oil production, expansion has not gone as planned. Only a handful of companies control industrial palm oil production and will likely drive expansion, but on a smaller scale and at a slower pace than originally anticipated. Nevertheless, these companies have been linked to …
In the light of environmental and social sustainability concerns in relation to palm oil from Southeast Asia, several Latin American countries see an opportunity to open export markets as they present palm oil from the region as a more sustainable option. However, social and environmental sustainability concerns are also prominent in the Latin American sector …
Oil palm growers in Brazil have argued that palm oil production is a “green solution” to safeguard the Amazon as a result of planting on areas already degraded and cleared only before 2008. While palm oil production in the Brazilian Amazon has relatively lower environmental impacts than soy and beef, this paper shows how also …
Indonesia is among the world’s largest mining countries. It is also a country of conglomerate companies with interests in various businesses, including deforestation-related sectors such as oil palm, industrial trees and mining. This report aims to shed a light on overlapping company groups in the Indonesian palm oil and mining sectors. Some large palm oil …
Chain Reaction Research held a webinar on April 14th to share our research on deforestation in Indonesia that is attributed to the development of oil palm plantations. Palm oil-driven deforestation has fallen to its lowest level in four years in 2021. The declining deforestation rates for oil palm in Indonesia are promising. However, recent …
The palm oil industry had high hopes for palm oil production to expand across Africa. But by the end of 2019 concessions across the continent were nearly half of what they were in 2016, and only 8% of those concessions have been developed into plantations according to recent estimates. Despite its slow growth, the palm …
In the light of environmental and social sustainability concerns in relation to palm oil from Southeast Asia, several Latin American countries see the opportunity to open export markets as they present palm oil from the region as a more sustainable option. However, social and environmental sustainability concerns are also prominent in the Latin American sector …
Chain Reaction Research held a webinar on October 21st, 2021 looking into a recent Aidenvironment report that documented 133,000 hectares of deforestation since 2016 that are significant producers of palm oil. The event focused on the need for more palm oil buyers’ No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) policies to be applied across all …
Chain Reaction Research (CRR) strives to provide objective insight and unbiased analysis on market trends and company and investor risk for its readers. CRR determines content based on what is considered to be of broad interest to readers and whether it can provide candid, high-level debate.
Chain Reaction Research conducts free sustainability risk analysis for financial analysts, credit analysts, commercial bankers, institutional investors, corporations, and other stakeholders. Our special focus is demonstrating that deforestation is material financial risk. We focus on tropical deforestation-related commodities including palm oil, soy, cattle, coffee, cacao, timber pulp and paper, and other products. We are funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) scheme managed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), and the Moore Charitable Foundation. Chain Reaction Research statements and materials do not necessarily reflect the standpoints of the Packard Foundation, the Moore Foundation or Norad.
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