Event

Cooperation – A Valuable Commodity

November 30, 2015
Keywords:
Commodities

Commodities Leaders Dialogue:
Cooperation – A Valuable Commodity

COP21 Side Event 


Tuesday, Dec. 1
14:45 – 16:00
Rio Conventions Pavilion

 


IISD/ENB Coverage

Edward King, journalist and producer, moderated the session, organized by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which focused on how stronger cooperation could accelerate the development and deployment of climate-positive solutions at scale.
 
Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson, GEF, identified three megatrends vis-à-vispopulation growth, middle class growth, and urban growth. Calling for a focus on the drivers of environmental degradation, she emphasized the need for systemic change in energy, city and food systems, respectively, noting that these provided the motivation for the GEF’s commodities programme.
 
Referring to his country’s natural resources, Rolando de Barros Barreto, Minister of Environment, Paraguay, referred to a “democratic dialogue” with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, on sharing environmental knowledge and production methods.
 
Marco Albani, Director, Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA 2020), speaking on sustainable production, called for moving from commitments to implementation, including: new “fresh” finance; landscape-level certification; further engagement of consumers, companies and countries; and improved data to verify impacts on the ground.
Francesco Tramontin, Mondelēz International, described the desire to carry commodity commitments forward by investing more in farming communities, citing Mondelēz’s approach to address deforestation in supply chains as an example.
 
Michael Jenkins, President and CEO, Forest Trends, noted the significant shift in approach to address deforestation, moving from a focus on illegal deforestation to focusing on agriculture as a driver. He further stated to address these challenges effectively, companies, civil society and multilateral actors all need to work together.
The ensuing discussion covered: facilitating sustainable development in Paraguay, including the role of bioenergy; identifying opportunities and challenges in making global commodity supply chains sustainable; using public money to strengthen the weakest link in supply chains; and measuring the impacts of actions, versus whether the actions are actually happening.
 
In closing, Albani highlighted that momentum from UNFCCC COP21 will be important for ensuring business and “conservation” act in concert. Ishii underscored that supply chains are undergoing a paradigm shift, and collaboration is needed to ensure that the desired result is achieved.
 

GEF Integrated Approach Pilot: Taking Deforestation out of Commodity Supply Chains

Today, soy, beef and palm oil yield about $92 billion a year to producers, many of whom are small-scale rural farmers. These commodities thus become important in many local and national economies. Therefore, sustainability within commodities will only be achieved by linking long-term national sustainable development plans with day-to-day value chain management.

 

 


Speakers

Naoko Ishii, CEO & Chairperson, Global Environment Facility. Dr.  Ishii was unanimously selected by the GEF Council in October 2015 for her second term. Prior to becoming the fourth CEO and Chairperson of the GEF, Dr. Ishii, as Deputy Vice Minister of Finance, was responsible for Japan's international financial and development policies, and for its global policies on environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity. For nearly half of her career, Dr. Ishii has served in international assignments outside of Japan, including at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. At the World Bank, Dr. Ishii was the Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives. She is the inaugural recipient of the 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize. She holds BA and Ph.D. from University of Tokyo. 

Rolando de Barros Barreto, Minister of Environment. Serving since January 2015 Minister Barreto has previously led government agricultural and environmental administration, and was an official of the national office Clean Development Mechanism, developing of the national greenhouse gas inventory for the National Program on Climate Change. He is a graduate from the School of Engineering Forestry Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the National University Asunción.

Francesco Tramontin, Director Public Affairs for Mondelēz Europe, is responsible to coordinate Mondelez external engagement strategy in Europe with particular focus on Sustainability and Health & Wellness issues.  Francesco worked from 2012 to 2013 in Mondelez Europe HQ in Zurich as Director Sustainability and from 2008 to 2012 in Kraft Foods’ HQ in Chicago where he was responsible for Issues Management coordinating the company’s global external positions on sustainability and environmental issues and managing Kraft Foods regular relationship with NGOs and external partners. Previously Francesco worked in EU public/government affairs in Brussels for Cargill and then Kraft Foods, focusing on environmental, trade and agricultural policy.  Mondelēz International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDLZ) is one of the world’s largest snacks companies, with pro forma 2014 revenue of more than $30 billion and over 100,000 employees in approximately 165 countries around the world.

Michael Jenkins, President of Forest Trends. From 1989-1999, he was the Associate Director for the Global Security and Sustainability Program of the MacArthur Foundation. Michael's responsibilities with the Program included all grant-making in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as overarching program management. In 1998, Michael was in a joint appointment as a Senior Forestry Advisor to the World Bank. Before entering the MacArthur Foundation, he worked for three years as an agroforester in Haiti with the USAID  Agroforestry Outreach Program. Previous to that, he worked with a Washington-based development organization, Appropriate Technology International, as a technical advisor. In the late 1970s, Michael was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay working in agriculture, apiculture, and forestry projects. He holds a Master's of Forest Science from Yale University.

Marco Albani, Director of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020. Previously, he was a senior expert in the Sustainability and Resource Productivity Practice of McKinsey & Company, where he served public, private, and social sector clients on strategic topics in the natural resources and sustainability arena, helping them to address the energy-food-water nexus and the challenges and opportunities created by climate change. Prior to joining McKinsey, Marco worked as a researcher in forest landscape ecology and carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems. He holds a Ph.D. in Forest Sciences from the University of British Columbia and a Baccalaureate degree in Forestry from the University of Florence, Italy.

Moderator: Edward King, Journalist and producer. Ed leads Climate Change TV an online channel hosting interviews and footage from international climate change and development summits, part of the larger Responding to Climate Change network. Ed previously worked as a Producer on BBC Radio 5 Live. He holds an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy from the London School of Oriental and African Studies, specializing in global energy and climate policy.