Sustainable commodity sourcing requires measuring and governing land use change at multiple scales.

Abstract

Abstract Agricultural expansion is the driver of more than 90% of deforestation across the tropics, a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. In response, a number of initiatives are emerging to both tackle deforestation and include it within the greenhouse gas emissions reporting of major importers and food companies. In May 2023, for example, the European Union approved a landmark due-diligence regulation on imported deforestation, and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is currently developing a harmonized approach for calculating scope 3 (i.e. supply chain) emissions, which includes emissions from deforestation and other land use change. These initiatives are critically important because they are agenda-setting, defining for years-to-come what success looks like for governments’ and companies’ efforts to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions. Unfortunately, we believe that both these initiatives are making a fundamental yet avoidable mistake which risks undermining their effectiveness in addressing deforestation. Namely, both initiatives monitor compliance and success exclusively at the farm-scale. Here, we pull together insights from the literature on land systems science and supply chain governance, and newly published data from Brazil from the Mapbiomas initiative, to make the case that in order to be successful, these initiatives must monitor compliance and success across multiple scales simultaneously, from farms to landscapes and administrative units.