An ‘Audacious’ plan to save vital forests

A plan to save the world’s ancient and endangered forests has been given a major capacity boost with US$60 million in funding designed to transform the paper, packaging, and fashion viscose supply chains.

Canopy (www.canopyplanet.org), a solutions-driven non-profit organisation, will receive the funding from The Audacious Project (audaciousproject.org), a non-profit collaborative funding initiative launched in 2018 that convenes funders and social entrepreneurs with the goal of supporting bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. Canopy was selected for its work in advancing vital forest-free supply chains, partnering with more than 900 global brands including H&M Group, Zara, Penguin Random House, and LVMH (which includes brands such as Chandon, Christian Dior, Tiffany, Givenchy and Tag Heuer). The move is intended to have planetary impacts for the climate and biodiversity.

Canopy will utilise the funds to accelerate the commercial-scale production of low-impact and circular clothing, paper, and packaging solutions that don’t rely on pulp from ancient and endangered forests. The solutions are derived from what is usually landfilled (waste textile, waste food scraps), or burned (agricultural residues), to create new fabrics, paper, pulp, and packaging. This will include diverting nearly 800 million tonnes of agricultural residue and waste textiles from being burned or landfilled, and completely eliminating the use of ancient and endangered forests in the paper, packaging, and fashion viscose supply chains.

Conserving and restoring forests has been identified as a major part of the solution to the growing climate crisis. More than five billion trees are cut down yearly for paper, packaging, and fashion fabrics alone, many from the world’s oldest, most carbon- and biodiversity-rich forests.