Palm oil firms kept zero-deforestation pledges, but forests saw little extra benefit

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compared Indonesian palm oil concessions linked to corporate zero-deforestation commitments against those without any such pledge. Companies largely kept their promises, but deforestation fell at nearly identical rates in both groups — an estimated additional reduction of just 0.12 percentage points, statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Researchers suggest the real drivers were mundane: most concessions had already lost half their forest by 2012, leaving little left to save, while falling palm oil prices made clearing new land less profitable. Government moratoria on new concessions may have also flattened the curve for everyone, pledge or no pledge.

The upshot is that a decade of corporate sustainability branding coincided with, rather than caused, whatever modest forest gains occurred.

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