In recent years, the private sector’s efforts to prevent deforestation (so-called Zero Deforestation) have been attracting attention due to growing interest in climate change and global warming prevention measures. This is due to the fact that the investment policy of the global financial community is shifting toward ESG investments that take environmental, social, and governance factors into account. The total investment amount is said to be as much as 2,500 trillion yen.
On the other hand, tropical forests rich in biodiversity continue to decline, and to address the problem of illegal logging, which is a contributing factor, developed countries such as Europe, the United States, and Australia have established laws to prevent illegal logging from entering their regions and require operators to conduct due diligence.
In May 2016, Japan also developed the Clean Wood Act, which encourages businesses to conduct due diligence to increase the distribution of legally harvested timber and reduce the distribution of illegally harvested timber.
This seminar focused on “due diligence” as an important key to responsible wood procurement, and discussed the significance, importance, and benefits of conducting due diligence with the aim of deepening basic understanding.
Sponsored by W-BRIDGE Project, Center for Integrated Environmental Research, Waseda University; Center for Tropical Agricultural Research, Kyushu University; FoE Japan, an international environmental NGO