‐ Hello and welcome, I'm Mallika Kapur, Deputy Global Editor at Bloomberg Live. On behalf of Bloomberg, I am so pleased you could join us for this day two of Bloomberg Green Festival. The topic of this next session is "Sustainable Forests for a Sustainable Future." We're gonna get to that in just a minute, but before that, I wanted to thank our festival sounding partner, HP, for helping to make today's virtual event possible. And before we get started, I just have a couple of housekeeping announcements, just so that you can enjoy the program more. If you experience any issues with audio or video quality, just refresh your browser or use the chat box in the bottom right corner of your screen for support. You will be able to submit questions during the interviews, and we really hope you do, we want this to be as interactive a conversation as possible. And while we probably won't get to all of you, we will do our best to get to as many of you as we can. So to submit a question, just click open the white tab on the right hand side of the video window and submit your question, do include your name and your location so we can give you a shout out. Also we are on social media, of course, and we'd love it if you engaged with us there. So join the conversation there using the hashtag, #Bloomberg green, okay? Time for the next session now. And I'd like to hand it over to my colleague, Adam majendie, Senior Editor at Bloomberg Green for the next session.

‐ In the past couple of years, we've seen a dramatic increase in reports of burning around the world from the Arctic circle to the tropics. And it's raising the alarm on what is really one of the defining environmental issues of our time, the future of our forests. So I'm Adam Majendie, a senior editor for Bloomberg Green, and to help lead us through this complex topic, we're pleased to invite Carter Roberts, president of the WWF in the US. Carter, thank you for joining the Bloomberg Green Festival.

‐ Thanks Adam, it's great to be here.

‐ So I'd like to start with a look at the patient. What is the state of health of our global forests right now?

‐ Well, I think all you have to do is look at the, the pictures on the news feeds today from California, with orange skies and San Francisco evidence of the fires that are burning there. A reminder of the fires that have burned in Brazil and Australia and consuming many other parts of the world. And, and you know, that parks are at risk. We are seeing forests decline, particularly in the tropics, at a astounding rate, something that can to 20 soccer fields every minute. And, we've lost about a billion acres since 1990 and that's due to a number of causes. One is climate change, which causes forests to, to change in their composition. Unsustainable food production is probably the leading cause. The development of infrastructure as countries want to develop and bring products to market and markets to people. And, and then last but not least, just the lack of valuing of forests and particularly by certain governments around the world who now seek to cut down forests and exploit them as part of restarting their economy. So forests very much at risk and we valued forests historically because they're store houses of nature. But we increasingly see just how profoundly they are and how profoundly important they are to you and me and the rest of humanities. ‐ So to take that point, I mean, before we get into the question of how do we stop all of this degradation, just set out, why does this matter? Why is it so important to stop losing so much of this particular ecosystem? I mean, given that, say for example, it gets replaced by like other trees, palm trees, or it gets replaced by crops or something like that. What is, what are we losing?

‐ Yeah, when you, when you cut down an intact rich tropical forest and replace it with a commodity monoculture, you lose a glittering array of life, the species with whom we share this planet, particularly tropical forests. You often lose other services that forests provide. The forests around the world, sequester seven times what humanity emits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The sequester is that carbon, and every time we cut down trees, we release it. And so they are, one of the biggest engines of stabilizing climate change and attack forests. Forests also provide 70% of the water that people use on the planet. And just as one example, the Amazon is the main weather engine for South America. As the rain comes off of the Atlantic drops into the Amazon evaporates repeats, repeats, since the Andes turned South. It provides water to the second largest bread basket in the world. You turn off that engine and you severely cripple Brazil's economy and the provision of food to the world. And, then there is the connection between forests, intact forests and the spillover of zoonotic diseases. When we dig deep into a forest, we provide the conditions for bats to transmit disease. I'll stop.

‐ Just before we get to that, I wanted to ask about the question that the issue you raised about the development issue, you, some of the reasons that you've given for the destruction of these forests is, a lot of it is obviously to do with countries, wanting to develop, seeing a short term gain that they can get from doing this. Come talk a little bit about what we can do, what companies and governments can do to mitigate that, to find ways where they don't have to tear down the forest or burn down the forests in order to get that sort of development.

‐ Right, we know there's this there's an economic imperative in every government. And governments, they can provide food for their people and also for export markets, by shifting the new production of food to degraded land, to the renewing of soils and land that's already been cut down to plant new crops there. Governments can be much smarter in how they design infrastructure. So they can draw a line on the map in a way that keeps the richest standing forest intact and still provides the means to bring food to market. Governments can also, governments can also condition the growth of food on food being deforestation free. Then, let me come to the flip side, which is companies around the world can condition their purchasing a product from that government or from that locale, by ensuring that it's either market certified using FSC certification or ensuring that those products were grown without cutting down trees. And that's proven to be a powerful mechanism to governments in keeping their forest intact while growing food, or while building infrastructure in whatever way they do.

‐ So what's the role, I mean, how can the public help in this? I mean, social media has become an incredibly powerful tool in the past few years, able to exert an extraordinary amount of pressure on politicians, on governments, on companies. What what's, what's your advice to people out there right now? Let's go out, let's do something to stop this destruction. ‐ People can do a number of things. They can choose what they eat and they can choose what they buy. And they can prefer products that are either FSC certified, or they can prefer products from companies that play strict restrictions on their supply chains. People can also choose to elect politicians one over another, and they can signal the importance of conservation for all the reasons we've already talked about to their families, to their communities, to their economies. last but not least, people can choose what they do in their workplace, businesses, governments, universities, and in every family. There are choices that you make in terms of policies, signals that you send, requirements that you put in place and how you conduct your business, that recognizes the value of nature. People are powerful in this equation and they need to make their voices heard. I've always said, we need to bring the movement back to the environmental movement, which has become so mainstream.

‐ So, I mean, that brings us to the point that I think you were getting to, which was this. One of the things that the current pandemic has shown us is how very closely related the events of nature are. And in particular, how rapidly, something that happens in one part of the world can spread to affect us all. What is the, how can we help to prevent this, this kind of a pandemic, this kind of virus in future, through the use of the way we manage the forests? How is that contributing to this?

‐ If you read the history of all the great plagues through time, inevitably the history recounts, how people identify the root cause of that plague and did something about it. To date, I would argue, we have spent more time addressing the symptoms of this plague and addressing those symptoms, but we haven't done enough to get to the root cause, which is this. It is the spillover of disease from bats to livestock, to people. And the, when you track that back, the chain looks like this. When you dig deeper into a wild forest, the bats interact with livestock, they pass on diseases, which they carry in great abundance to livestock, they pass that on to people who are now in inserting themselves into those wild places. And in some cases, people bring those wild animals from those wild places to market. We can address that by keeping these forests intact and ensuring that that intersection, those edges are less perfused. We can also address zoonotic disease at its source by ending the trade and illegal trade of wild animals and ending the consumption of wildlife, that's very much at risk for people because of the disease they carry.

‐ So, I mean, part of it is obviously ending that trade, part of it is, providing the, providing the environments, providing the ecosystems in which they can live, so that we're not basically having to interact all the time.

‐ That's right. And, you know, WWF, we have a major program in the world working with governments to keep those tropical forests intact that are at the epicenter of many of the biggest diseases that affect humanity. And we are very much getting after the trade and wildlife with the help of a number of companies, many key governments, and working closely with China on ending the consumption of wild animals in their wet markets and with great hope that that, that policy right now becomes permanent. ‐ So, coming back to the point about the development, what happens, persuading countries like China to adopt these sorts of policies and also the countries that, that contains some of our largest forests. There's always been this argument that it comes back to the point about development, is that yes, we would love to do this, we would love to do all of these things, but we need to, you know, we have policy, we need to bring people out of poverty. We need to provide these solutions. What is the, what is the best way of finding a way to work together with these, with the governments, with the companies and so forth to try and bring solutions which bring development, but at the same time, recognize the true value of the forests, especially the tropical forests around the equatorial area.

‐ We cannot put a bubble over all of these places in the world. Humanity and these places are intertwined in various ways, but there is always a better way to grow food. There's a better way to design infrastructure. There's a better way to handle transportation. And there's a better way to ensure that people's needs are met over the long term without relying on handouts from around the world. And the evidence is that the better forms of food production use 1/10 as much land, energy, and water. The best forms of infrastructure, keep those natural processes intact and the best forms of transportation do the same. And so for us, it's all a question of getting upstream with decision makers, with the right science, but also with the right incentives, market incentives, so that they both understand the benefits of choosing a dam that lets water flow through, choosing food production that's more sustainable. And the market supports that choice by favoring that country and those products over others.

‐ Do you see that happening in a meaningful way at the moment? Do you see that that market change where market forces themselves, people's choices, the individuals themselves are forcing the particularly developing nations who rely on these commodities to start adapting, to start changing the way they're doing things, because it's, it makes economic sense to do so.

‐ We see it, we don't see it enough. And when you, when you look at the case of the Amazon, the Amazon for the past 25 years has been one of the best case studies of how market forces combined with government actions can reduce deforestation substantially. But that is until recently. And we've seen it when companies enacted a soy moratorium in the Amazon and basically said, we will not buy soy from this place, without there being an assurance that they is D free or deforestation free. We saw it, we see it now as companies, some of the biggest retailers in the world, some of the biggest consumer products companies have insisted that their purchasing from Brazil is conditioned on those things. But at the same time, you, you cannot underestimate the importance of regulation. There is inevitably a moment where companies will say I've set these goals, but I can't get there without the government doing its part, either in creating parts or enacting regulations enforcing those regulations to keep illegal deforestation from happening. And so consumers and companies can get us, let's call it halfway there, but they can't close the gap without governments playing their role. And consumers and companies can definitely influence government by making their voices heard. And by being forthright about the science and the consequences for humanity.

‐ I'd like to end with one point looking ahead to what might be seen as a potentially Titanic clash between the environmental goals that you've been talking about. I know a lot of people have been talking about warning the idea that we may be facing a food crisis. A lot of the destruction of these forests is due to producing agricultural products. Do you see that there is a coming conflict between those two things as the world struggles to find more food, but at the same time wants to preserve these important ecosystems?

‐ I believe that the future wars of the world will be fought over natural resources and food. And as humanities numbers grow, as climate change, it makes it much harder to predict the production of food and with droughts and wildfires and the rest making things more and more difficult. The pressure is on to cut down trees, to plant crops, to feed humanity. And I do believe that food is the nexus of environmental destruction and climate change, and ultimately the destabilization of the planet. So I agree with you, food is going to be a flash point and we need the world, governments, businesses, consumers, to wake up and realize there are better, more sustainable ways to grow food that don't destroy forests, to enforce market signals to make it so. And then to create the land use planning and the government management to make sure that these forests remain intact. It is in the absence of good governance, in the absence of valuing nature, we have seen food fights occur in Africa in Guatemala and other countries in the world. And when that happens, governments falter, people move and it destabilizes many more countries besides, so this is one of the biggest issues that we face. One of the biggest reasons why WWF has built a significant food practice, because we see it as you see it, as a pending calamitous issue for humanity, but even more so for the nature upon which we depend.

‐ Got it, thank you very much for joining us in the Bloomberg Green Festival, and I wish you and your organization, the best of luck in all of your endeavors.

‐ Thank you, Adam. It's, good luck to you there in Singapore and let's hope we manage our way through everything we face today, and we, and we manage to keep the planet intact for years to come. Thanks.

‐ Thank you.

‐ So, one time, sometimes the best way to sort of look at the rainforest itself is to actually go there and listen to the essence of of the pro forest while you're there. And that's actually sound. So when you actually go to the tropical rain forest, it's actually sound that sort of hits you the most. In many cases, one of the issues out there is you can have these amazing sounds from the forest, but how do we actually stop illegal logging and what's coming out of there? So looking at technology and how technology can play a role in this, there's many technologies actually come into this so far. There's like satellites. Satellites can teach us a lot about what's happening in the forest. There's camera traps, there's community monitoring, they'll likely to take their phones and will tell you what's going on. Drones, of course, the solution to everything and aerial monitoring can tell you a lot of what's happening. But in many places throughout the world, this monitoring has actually allowed for a real time connection to what's actually there. So Rainforest Connection is an organization based in San Francisco, in California. It's the organization I'm with, and in many ways, we're actually trying to address this real time connection to what's happening there on the ground. So this is the solution that we have. The moment that a chainsaw is used in the forest, the sound is picked up by a device up in the tree, which transmits through the real time network to the cloud, to someone on the ground, he gets an alert on their phone and they're like, what? And they jump on their motorcycles and they get out there, actually stop the loggers on the spot. And this perfectly realistic rendition of exactly how these things happen in the forest. But at the end of the day, this sort of real time connection can really allow us to, to, to actually respond, and in many cases, stop these things on the spot, which is a big difference. But you know these things, you rely upon some device up in the trees. So in our case, Rainforest Connection we take what essentially are old smartphones. The ones people throw away throughout the world, and we put them in boxes of solar panels, put them up high in trees so they can listen to all the sounds of the forest and actually catch those chainsaws that you just saw, you know, as they actually take place. There's a powerful solar panels, they can last for years. And powerful microphones that can actually pick up sounds of chainsaws far, far away. And this is actually what one of them would look like up on a tree, we call these things guardians, but actually backing up for a second and talking about protecting the rainforest, you know, many ways I've been hearing about protecting forests my entire life. I'm almost 40, but you know, people have been hearing about these things forever. And the narrative hasn't really changed too much. Whereas there's many things that people might think are more urgent, like climate change and the rest, but it turns out that of all the deforestation, of all the sort of carbon emissions worldwide, every year up to 17% or more of all the carbon emissions come from deforestation. That's more than all transportation put together. More of all the cars, trucks, planes, ships, combined. None of that adds up to the annual emissions of carbon from deforestation. And actually in the rainforest, up to 90% of the logging taking place there is illegal. And if it's illegal, there's a mandate to stop it. And people on the ground can actually be, can be sort of mobilized to actually stop this. And so that 90% can actually take, actually 90% of something that we have mandate to stop with people there on the ground. And of course not all of the logging, not all the deforestation is from logging itself. A lot of it comes from, you know, farming and illegal uses of land. But logging illegal logging itself is the most profitable thing up there. In fact, in many ways, illegal logging is so profitable, they will actually cut a road into the forest to get there. And once the road has been cut, that's when the, the legal burning will take place, the farms. And so if you can stop the illegal logging you can stop the roads, if you can stop the roads, you can stop the wholesale destruction of the forest. And that's why actually stopping illegal logging. could be the fastest cheapest way for us to fight climate change today, by taking an enormous amount out of that 17%. But actually, how does this work in the field? So let's talk about one of our projects outside in the forest. If you look here, this is the Amazon, the largest rainforest in the world. And if you look at Brazil, there's this ocean of deforestation there, but these islands of pretty intact forest. And in fact, those are not traditional protected areas in the regional sense, they're actually indigenous lands, lands where indigenous tribes have been given the rights to, to protect and take ownership of their lands, and they do kind of take responsibility for that. And so zooming in on one of these, we're gonna zoom on the Tembe, up into the city of Belang. This red outline is the, the territory they have. It's about the size of Yosemite National Park, so actually quite quite large. This is the Tembe themselves. There's actually 2,500 of them left in this area, but kind of surrounded on all sides. And we first met them in 2015, this entire purple area that you see here was actually controlled by illegal drug cartels, illegal logging cartels and illegal settlers. And so in many ways, the Tembe were kind of confined to the Northern and Southern parts of their land, and in many ways, this was kind of an existential struggle for them. In many ways, they are able to show that they will protect the forest if they can. And just driving from one village to the next, you know, this is kind of what they would run into in these sort of illegal incursions of their land, just full on logging trucks entirely well‐stocked. They were just taking wood from their land, in many ways, the only thing you could really do in this situation is to just speed up and get out of there. So this in mind, the Tembe were able to recognize, as many tribes do, especially now, that protection of their land was sort of essential to their survival. That's the land they have. And so with that in mind, they were able to sort of team up and train 15 young Rangers who were able to, to get up there and trying to patrol the area. But it's a very large area as you saw, the size of Yosemite National Park. So that's where a real time monitoring system, like what we built actually came in handy. These are, these are the sort of cell phone networks that you see out there, but even just being able to, to pick those up is pretty important. So you have to basically pick up a cell phone network from 15, 20 kilometers away just to get inside of that, of that territory. So this is actually how the system works in the field. This is the sound of a chainsaw as picked up by the system. Similar to that, an animation you saw at the beginning, except this is a, this is really in real time. This is from a few meters away, a few hundred meters away. But again, we're talking about the Tembe land. This is very large. And so in many ways you're looking for chainsaws that are very far away. And so each one of these devices, these guardians, we call them, can pick up chainsaws up to a kilometer and a half in the distance, which means you can actually cover a very, very large area with one old smartphone up in a tree. And that's actually where data like this sort of comes in. If you listen very carefully, you can hear the chainsaw in the distance. And so based on this alert, the Tembe were able to scramble, get there, get the Rangers out there, be able to intercept this logging truck at the end of the road, the Tembe were able to seize that logging truck, seize the equipment and actually stop the loggers there. They were able to get quite a few Rangers mobilized in order to take, take responsibility for that. But that's really, yeah. And the Tembe of course have their own, their own sense of how they should take these things on. There's no law enforcement in the area, enforcement sort of law and order is left up to local communities and the Tembe themselves are able to take that on. They were able to bring the truck and then make sure the loggers would not come back in. This is kind of what the state of environmental detection defense defense is in a lot of areas around the world that we see, but really that's sort of boils down to it is if we're a tech company based in San Francisco, the one, and we wanna be able to fight climate change. We're nonprofit, that's our mission. The thing that we can do the most, like the most effective thing we can do is to help build tools for groups like this. Like this one guy is able just by protecting his own backyard to have a bigger effect on fighting climate change and dozens of engineers that are electric, a car company, or at a, you know, a clean energy company. That's really the impact that it can have by working with, with these folks. And that's really sort of our mission build the tools for them so they can do the work that we can't. Now, this is not just a, you know, the only story we have many stories like this around the world, we've been operating for a few years and we're in 14 countries already, marching a very, very large amount of forest. And the amount of carbon that's within that is a, is, is really quite an incredible equivalent to millions of cars off the road. Here's some other similar examples from what you saw in Tembe, of course, we're doing this all over the world, and this is sort of where it comes in. And in addition to that, we will be expanding into, to four new regions over the next few months, COVID of course has been difficult on all groups in environmental conservation, but we are able to look back into the field starting at the end of this month. And so we're excited to expand it to new regions. If anyone would like to work with us, we hope you will, but it really actually goes far beyond that. So every single one of these guardians, these phones, we put up in trees, yes, they are listening to the sounds of chainsaws. They were able to send alerts, but it's also a realtime stream from the forest. So anybody around the world, is able to listen in live to what's happening in the forest every single time, one of the things up. So we think this is a whole another way by which we can help protect the forest, get people interested in what's there, create live data streams we can use for studying, understanding the forest. In this case, just for pleasure, we hope that anyone actually will tune in and actually listen to the sounds of the apps. But on top of that, there's so much more you can do with it too. So again, this is one of the dashboards that we built for, for the enforcement, protection of the land. And this is a stream coming out of Simatra. Again, this is a spectrogram. You use this to sort of map the sound. The whole question is what else can we do with the sound? Yes, we can detect threats and chainsaws and the rest, but it also, we can actually look in and actually study nature for what it is. So here we look at the actual sound from the forest and we're able to hear And through the use of AI. We're able to map out this some bounces a second. This is really exciting for us. In many ways, we're able to turn, we're to turn this sort of sound of nature, the ecology of nature into a big data problem. And so that I think is the next big frontier for us, is being able to study nature through sound and learn so much more. 'cause the sound of our living planet might be the most untapped resource for protecting it. Thanks a lot for your time.

‐ Hi, and welcome to a Bloomberg event on course, and some solutions. From our last presentation, I think you've seen that force are incredibly valuable and it's been a little scary and also a little inspirational what's happening in our tropical rainforest in terms of solution and in terms of the problem. But today we've been incredibly distinguished panel to talk about the corporate side of things. What corporations are doing, how they're valuing forests now, and some of the solutions that are being put in place. So I just want to introduce our panel, which is incredibly distinguished. Sophie Beckham is the first Chief Sustainability Officer with International Paper. And she's gonna talk a little bit today about how they are addressing and protecting forest. Corey Brinkema is the President of the Forest Stewardship Council, which of course plays an incredibly important role in helping lease wood and feeling enforce and products coming from there for stewardship council approval often makes that timber more valuable. And Lynn Scarlett is the Chief External Officer with The Nature Conservancy. She's worked extensively on these issues, both with TNC and in the government. So we are very lucky to have this group of people together. So from the last panel, I think everyone can agree that forests are valuable, they play an important role. And one of the great transitions for corporate America, I think in recent years is that forests are not just valuable for the wood, but also standing. So I was hoping we could just start talking about where forests stand from corporate accountability in terms of how people started to get interested in them and what ways we're seeing corporations treat forests differently than they might have even five or 10 years ago. Corey, should we start with you?

‐ Yeah, happy to, to kick us off. Yeah, thank you then. So, you know, I think what we've come to recognize, especially in the last maybe couple of decades here is that, you know, the rate that we are using forests for forest products and using the land underlying forests for other purposes, such as agriculture is just simply unsustainable. And we've seen in, in many cases around the world government stepping up to, to better protect the forest within their boundaries. But I think what's most exciting again about the progress over the last couple of decades is that the, the corporate world, as well as civil society have come to that recognition themselves and realize that they need to be doing something about this and making decisions internally in particular to source more responsibly and ensure that the supply chains that they depend on are, are bringing in wood and fiber and other forest products coming from lands that have been managed responsibly.

‐ Sophie, do you wanna talk about that? Why did International Paper decide they needed a sustainability officer and what is your role there on that front?

‐ Yeah, great. Thank you, Leslie. And it's great to be here with Corey and Lynn. So I'm excited about our panel today. So International Paper is one of the largest packaging and paper companies in the world . And as such, we are one of the largest fiber buyers in the world, which means our entire business model depends on the sustainability of forests. I think that the way we see this, is the way we transform these renewable resources into products people use every day is by thinking holistically about our value chain. So my job at International Paper includes working with our fiber buyers who are on the ground with landowners every day, encouraging sustainable forest management practices. And that value chain continues into our products, which go out to our customers and provide the solutions that people are looking for in the packaging pulp and paper space. I think the shift that Corey mentioned, the pivot has really been, how do we think holistically about those forests, not just as economic return to the forest landowners, but also for the multiple goods and services that forest provide. And it was mentioned earlier by Carter, whether it's water quality, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, there's a tremendous environmental, economic and social opportunity coming from forests. And we need to look at them as a whole, which is how we're thinking about it within our own context in our, our fiber, our fiber sourcing, as well as our goals around forest conservation and restoration.

‐ So Lynn, a lot of corporations are saying a lot of good things, I mean, what do you think? Do you think there's really been a shift in what corporations think, or is there just been a lot of pressure and people have to say the right things.

‐ You know, we're seeing an absolutely profound shift. So as Sophie noted, there are many values for forests, and certainly carbon sequestration and all the elevated focus on climate solutions brings forests into the mix and front and center stage, but water also and clean water, another important realm. What we are seeing is, as companies look at their own carbon footprint and they try to use renewables and they try to reduce their packaging and they try to do all manner of other things to reduce their carbon footprint, they realize it's not enough. And so they're coming to us to invest in forest forests store enormous amount of carbon, our national forest, for example, the storage of carbon that they present, actually, it's the equivalent of taking 24 million cars off the road. So it's a big deal. Companies are coming to us for that, but they're also coming for water and water quality companies like Coca Cola, for example, work around the world, they need clean water. And lo and behold, it turns out, investing in forest helps clean that water and often at a price tag less than using traditional mechanical treatment. So it's the real deal you're seeing really an exponential increase in interest by corporations to invest in nature.

‐ So when we talk about investing in forests, let's be clear, what does that mean? Does that mean we're buying the land and investing it? Does that mean that we're partnering with people who hold it? Does that mean that we're lobbying countries to do a better job like in Brazil and other places? So Corey, do you wanna start us on that, when we're investing in forest, what does that mean?

‐ Sure, sure, happy to. I think we need to recognize that, you know, there are obviously many ills facing forests now from deforestation to forest degradation. You know, but the really the greatest threat facing forests is really the root cause of that degradation and deforestation and it's that we grossly undervalue forest for what they deliver both to the global economy, to human health and wellbeing and I mean, I like to think of, you know, in some ways pun intended, you know, think of Amazon stock back in, you know, year, 2000, 20 years ago, you know, is that about $150 a share and I think yesterday it closed at something like 3,100. So 20 times its value from, What's that?

‐ I said I wish I had invested, it's painful, go on.

‐ Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. So, you know, 20 times its value from, from 20 years ago. And, what I hope certainly 20 years from today is that we recognize, you know, civil society, governments, and most importantly markets recognize that forests are absolutely essential to life on earth. Then somewhere along that way, we will have monetize them accordingly, you know. We know that forests are the most cost effective way to store carbon, they are the source of the majority of our clean water not to mention their contribution to the livelihoods of more than a billion people on earth. And, you know, they deliver in spades and at some point in the future, we're gonna need to recognize that. And I think what, you know, we're not talking about just simply setting forests aside and not being able to touch them. I think what we've recognized and certainly FSC certification has been able to provide a set of standards and certification system to be able to protect those myriad values of the forest while still benefiting from the forest products coming off them. But one of the things that we've recognized, you know, to really bring this to scale, we do need to deliver additional value beyond let's say the premium that FSC certification might garner in the market place. We need to bring in other financial value to those landowners for leaving more trees in the forest for protecting other high conservation values. And, you know, one of the, I think right now clearly the most promising is through monetizing the carbon that they're storing additionally, and ideally down the road, there will be monetizations for protecting water quality, biodiversity, and potentially other values.

‐ Okay, that's a good point. Sophie, do you wanna talk about what it means to invest in forests? Does that mean giving land owners money for the carbon and water that they're protecting?

‐ Yeah, I think it's a great question with a lot of right responses. I think for International Paper investment forests really looks like investing in our entire value chain to continue to be able to buy wood from forest landowners, incentivize them through the market tools that Corey is talking about, whether it's FSC certification or the opportunity for, for carbon credit generation through improved forest management practices on their land. But I think ultimately what we want to, what we wanna move towards and the direction that the, and the opportunity the forest products industry has, is to deliver sustainable outcomes through our entire business model. And I think that is really the shift that's gonna be critical to both incentivizing the forest landowners, to improve forest management practices or to enable the policy creation and countries in which there's not large private forest land ownership, to be able to drive towards the sustainable forest management outcomes such as improved carbon sequestration or the improvement water quality or biodiversity characteristics of those forests. So I think from where I sit and with International Paper, if our business model and the development of our, of our renewable fiber‐based products can deliver these sustainable outcomes, then it's a win for our customers. It's a win for the consumers who, you know, today in particular, so have such a high demand for let's say toilet paper in the last six months, and it's also a win for those forest landowners who continue to have a reason to keep those forests as "working" forests where they're providing those multiple goods and services.

‐ Lynn, do you have thoughts on what it means to invest in a forest? I still think I'm not entirely clear, does it mean that we pay people to keep their trees up and to protect water?

‐ It means a whole spectrum of things. And at The Nature Conservancy, we engage in all of them. So for example, we have a 250,000 acre project in partnership with some other entities where the property was acquired. We are then advising and helping improved forest management so that there will be sustainable timber projects. That's one part of the picture, but also preparing those lands to actually provide carbon credits to the storage of carbon in those trees, for example. But another example is the United States, a large amount of private forests are actually owned by small landowners that is less than 5,000 acres. Many of them don't have the resources to invest in preparing their forest to be able to sell forest carbon into the marketplace. And so invest in that case means a partnership like what we're doing with Amazon, for example, to actually help provide the technical expertise and some of the upfront investment to change the management practices so that those, those landowners can then participate in the sale of forest carbon into the marketplace. Means a whole lot of things. We also do work like Corey said on supply chain. So work with companies that buy goods from, let's say, Latin America from the Amazon and there, we want to avoid deforestation. So there investment means, how do you invest in agriculture practices that help to avoid deforestation for example. But if you engage in agroforestry, have some trees in the mix, you can also have forest carbon to kind of sell it in the marketplace as well. So it's a whole spectrum of things. Buy land and protect, improve land management through different techniques and invest in those and then help build the marketplace so that carbon markets can flourish.

‐ Go ahead.

‐ Yeah, I was just gonna add, I think Lynn teed up so well that the other component of investment from the corporate angle is really on how we partner with strategic partners and International Paper works with both FSC and The Nature Conservancy, investing in strategic partnerships that can scale up all of this work. And so in that context, investment really looks like, okay, what can we do together to accelerate the concepts of improved forest management or conservation or restoration? And what's the ultimate impact that we can have on the ground. And I think when we think of forest investment, we think of it through both our sourcing and our value chain, but we also think of it through what are our partnerships look like and where can we go together? And I think it's notable that 10 years ago, that would not have been the case. The forest products industry and others from, you know, the NGO community were not that excited about partnering. And now that we've shifted, I think we're able to achieve a lot more.

‐ So, one of the questions I sort of have is, and I think that a lot of people who look at forest sort of, you know, for stamps of approval is how accurate are they? How are you able to really get in and monitor what's happening in these very big places and give them. So Corey, you give, you give approval to people who are supposedly doing legitimate and sustainable forestry, but you've been caught a couple of times in, in perhaps, you know, approving forest like in Russia that turned out not to be completely sustainable. So the question is how do you really, with such a big amounts of land and across so many countries, how are you really enforcing these principles of sustainability?

‐ Right, it's a great question. I mean, we, we, I mean, any, any standard in certification system will, will have its gaps and, and as we have grown, as we've gotten to scale, I think FSC now is a little over 500 million acres certified all around the world. I think in some 80 countries, that there are going to be some bad actors that try to skirt some of the rules. And, you know, I think there are the underlying model of FSC certification is very sound. And we have convened the really the world's most respected stakeholders, global conservation groups, like The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Green Peace and others, as well as social interests and progressive companies to essentially define those values that should be protected while we benefit from the harvest of forest products. And what we've also done that core to that model also is, is independent auditing. So, you know, much like financial auditing, we set the standards, but independent auditors are the ones actually verifying conformance on the ground. And there are certainly areas where there, you know, there are shades of gray where laws, which is part of being wise is part of our standard and sometimes they conflict with other requirements in the standard. And we've definitely learned some lessons from some of those challenges. I think that our, honestly, our greatest challenge right now is the success that we've had in the market place is bringing folks out of the woodwork. And in places where let's say fraud is a little more commonly practiced and, you know, they're, they wanna get in on the game and we need to, we really need to be able to use, you know, the latest technologies, blockchain is a format that we are really investigating seriously, to understand how it might be able to be brought into our chain of custody, auditing procedure, essentially on a transaction by transaction basis, to be able to weed out fraud in the system. I think that's where, you know, go forward where we are probably going to be the most challenged. But we're learning we're, we're obviously a large global organization and we think we're on the right path.

‐ So, Sophie, you can maybe take that up. We did get an audience question that is also about technology. So I'll relate it to blockchain, but they ask like new tech tools like UVA and laser scanning soil sensors. So if you could sort of work in how tech technology might be part of the auditing process.

‐ Sure, I mean, I think really we have to start with a fundamental question, which is, if you, if you don't know where your wood is coming from, you really can't do anything about your supply chain. So the starting point for all of this, whether it's towards certification or using other technologies, which I will speak to, is really about transparency in your supply chain. Knowing where your wood is coming from and getting closer to the forest management, to be able to ask those really critical questions about whether or not there's degradation, or good forest management, sustainable forest management and conservation going on. In the last year, International Paper has developed a GIS based tool, which is essentially a mapping tool that our fiber buyers have on their phone as an app. When they go out to, to have an opportunity to buy some, some timber, they're able to leverage this app, which includes several layers of information about the forest type, the potential occurrence of rare center threatened or endangered species, the contiguousness, the species richness. It has a tremendous amount of data in it that the fiber buyer can look to, to verify whether or not that fiber in question would meet International Paper's requirements for responsible fiber purchasing. Now, the opportunity with this kind of tool, is to get at what Lynn was saying, which is we buy from 90% of our fiber in the US comes from small private forest land owners. When we can use this tool, it invites a conversation with those forest landowners about what kind of management approaches they're using on their land and how we can support them with the technical resources to be able to, to enhance those management approaches prior to harvest. And I think that's a critical point of intervention because it gives us an opportunity to engage with landowners who by and large really wanna do the right thing. They wanna make sure that that charismatic creature or that lovely migratory songbird is present in their forest landscape and those objectives can be accomplished. So this is an opportunity for us to take onboard this new technology, put it in the hands of our fiber buyers and allow them to deploy it. I wouldn't say to the audience that the question came in about precision forestry, it's probably not quite falling in the category of precision forestry, but it does fall into the category of being able to improve forest management through an intervention and providing outreach to landowners. So that's the direction we're taking it. And that's a compliment to our work with certified supply chains. So with FSC certified supply chains and with our own FSC certified group of forest landowners, which we're also supporting. So we see these as complimentary, they're both advancing conservation conservation outcomes through our purchase of that fiber.

‐ And I just wanna ask a quick follow up question, where does the information that goes into this app come from?

‐ Great question. Really several sources. Publicly available data that comes from US forest service, US geological service, but we're also starting to layer in new data, for example, we use some of The Nature Conservancy's data on long leaf pine habitat and on presence of swallowtail kites, which are a very special, rare kind of bird that have a specific habitat range. And we are starting explore new areas in which we could include data that's credible, verified and been produced by a partner who has a reputation for really robust data development.

‐ So Lynn that brings us to you and the role of technology and all of this. But I think Sophie also raises another point, which is even if you have all the information, are the forest owners able to do the sustainable practices that they want? Do they have the support and money and know how to get there anyway?

‐ Yeah, so I do wanna amplify the point that emerging technologies for monitoring and verification are very important because that is critical. That is not enough to just sell something, but verify that the partner really is there and that it's enduring. And one of the challenges is that traditional ways of doing that are somewhat costly. So these new technologies are very helpful. But you're absolutely right. The technology is important. It's important for measuring, verifying and so forth. But what we find is particularly for smaller landowners in the US, there are some upfront costs to changing your practices for how you're actually managing your forest to position it to meet certain standards or certifications and/or to play into the carbon market, for example. And so, as I mentioned earlier, our partnership with Amazon looking at that barrier to participation, has been one in which we are going in and working with those land owners, paying for those up front costs, to position them then to be able thereafter to participate through sustainable practices and practices that meet the requirements for participating in carbon market. So there are some upfront costs where that investment can be really catalytic. You know, there's something else that we've not mentioned, which is if you're a corporate buyer, you wanna buy carbon, great, let's just say. You do not want to engage in 10,000 transactions with 10,000 landowners who each own 50 or a hundred or 200 acres. And so another role for an organization like The Nature Conservancy is sort of an aggregator, so we're working in the Northeast. having helped create something called carbon co‐op and all these smaller landowners then participate in the co‐op use their management practices. And then the buyer can buy the carbon credits from that co‐op kind of one stop shop. So there's all kinds of enabling conditions that a nonprofit organization like The Conservancy can play a catalytic role in supporting.

‐ I love that. I hadn't heard of the carbon co‐op, so that's fabulous. So look, we're getting to last five minutes of the panel, and a lot of what's happening with forests can be very discouraging. But I think what I like about this panel is we we've given some nice solutions. If all of you sort of wanted to take one minute to say of all the things you've seen, what's interesting about this panel is you all work across multiple forests and multiple owners, and really have a wide range of knowledge of what's out there. If you sort of wanted to leave our viewers with like the one favorite you have, whether it's the carbon co‐op or whatever it is in terms of technologies or practices that you'd like to see expand, I'd love to hear from you. Corey, do you wanna start or am I putting you on the spot?

‐ Sure, sure. Yeah, no problem, Leslie, thank you. Yeah, I mean, for sure, within the certification realm, I mean, the commitments by major forest products producers is a huge sign of hope for us from Kimberly Clark and Procter and gamble, Sophie's company, International Paper, Ikea, Williams‐Sonoma, Tetra Pak, you know, many of the world's largest producers have appreciated that, you know, a bit of attention and investment into sustainable supply chains is an investment in their future and bolsters their credibility with consumers. But honestly right now, the greatest sign of hope for me, and we've talked a little bit around this is, the flood of pledges and commitments of carbon neutrality by major corporations. I mean, literally just the beginning of this year, you know, we had Larry Fink from BlackRock commit to, you know, including climate and climate change in their due diligence go forward. We had Microsoft, Amazon, Ikea, and even companies that depend on fossil fuels like British Petroleum and Delta Airlines commit to neutrality in the next 10 to 20 years. And there is no way that those commitments will be realized without substantive investment in this storage of carbon and forests. And so we, we believe that that forest will be vital for that investment. And the, the wonderful thing is that so many of those other myriad values will be protected along the way.

‐ Sophie, in terms of things you're seeing out there in the many forests and forest managers you work for, is there any particular technology or any particular program that really speaks to you?

‐ You know, I think I would have to add onto what Corey has said. I think that if we, if we start with the, the forest landowners and those who manage forests, there are an increasing number of incentives and tools that they can use to improve forest management and also to deliver the outcome for themselves that they're really looking for, whether it's in the social economic or environmental space, you know, I think there's a huge potential to, to really be more comprehensive about de‐carbonization through climate solutions which start in the forest, but ultimately I'm really inspired by what's going on around us, to think about our whole value chain. And we haven't talked at all about sort of circularity and renewable solutions on this call, but this, the forest stewardship piece of it is the starting point to the circularity of our products, of our fiber based products. And it really translates throughout the value chain with opportunities for de‐carbonization at the forest level for ambitious targets around greenhouse gas reductions, us we're looking at a 35% reduction in the next 10 years of our greenhouse gases from our manufacturing, and then through our products, these really, you know, fantastic fiber‐based packaging, pulp, and paper going out to our customers. So I think what I'm thinking about right now is, rather than just siloing, well we're gonna focus on the forest, or we're gonna focus on our manufacturing. How do we get really holistic about the whole value chain and think about it in terms of circular solutions that really deliver win‐wins for everybody in the equation. ‐ So, Lynn, we're down to just one minute, just if I'm a lay person and I wanna make sure I'm participating in these wonderful changes, what should I do?

‐ Oh, golly. I was gonna, I was gonna add to what everyone else said, which is that climate is one of our biggest challenges that we face. And we have in nature, a solution that's hidden in plain sight of our research has shown that nature, not just forests, but wetlands and even soil health can generate about 1/3 of the emission deductions needed by 2030 to get us on the right pathway or assert the head of the pack reforestation at the head of the pack. So I guess if I were looking to, both the companies out there, as well as citizens, doing everything, whether it's politically, whether it's in corporate engagement and investments to invest in reforestation, improve forest management and protecting forests is the way to go.

‐ So we're not gonna have to, I'm gonna stop you all we're really done at the end. Thank you all for participating in this panel and shedding light on this very important issue. Keep up all your good work and we look forward to seeing you again.

‐ Thank you, Leslie.

‐ Thank you.

‐ We're good, Thank you for joining this session of the Bloomberg Green Festival and I do hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to all our speakers and moderators for a wonderful program and a huge thank you to our festival founding partner, HP, for helping make today's event possible. Most of all, a big thank you to you our viewers for being such an engaged audience, and we hope you'll continue to be with us. So we look forward to having you join us for upcoming sessions at the Bloomberg Green Festival, which continues until Friday, September 18th. Now our next session focuses on zero carbon careers. Yes, it is possible. And that conversation takes place at noon Eastern time. And remember for more climate news and data driven insights from Bloomberg's global newsroom, you can visit bloomberg.com/green. And remember to follow Bloomberg on Twitter, our handle is simply @business. Thank you for watching.