Climate Focus is currently working on the second edition of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) Progress Assessment Report, set to be released in early November 2016. The report builds on the 2015 NYDF Assessment Framework and Initial Report, which proposes a framework of indicators to measure progress towards the ten goals of the NYDF and summarize their status. Climate Focus, acting as secretariat, is responsible for the overall process in the continuous NYDF Progress Assessment until 2020, supported by a network of NGOs, think tanks, and research organizations. Updates will be published and made publicly available via annual reports and on the interactive web platform (forestdeclaration.org).

The New York Declaration on Forests, signed into effect at the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014, is a voluntary political declaration with ambitious targets to end forest loss. The declaration has over 180 signatories: 37 governments, 20 sub-national governments, 53 multi-national companies, 16 groups representing indigenous communities and 63 non-government organizations. Ongoing monitoring efforts, engagement and visibility of the NYDF Progress Assessment will enable stakeholders to hold signatories accountable to their commitments and to ensure that interest in achieving the NYDF goals is maintained. 

The 2016 Report takes an in-depth look at Goal 2 – support and help meet the private-sector goal of eliminating deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper, and beef products no later than 2020 – and related supply chains. In addition, the report will give brief updates on the progress of the other nine NYDF goals.

The 2016 Report will provide broad, fact-based and actionable insights on private sector progress on political barriers that companies encounter in their efforts to eliminate deforestation from supply chains. Climate Focus works closely with a coalition of initiatives that support and assess private sector efforts, including the Carbon Disclosure Project, Forest 500 (Global Canopy Program), Rainforest Alliance, Supply Change (Forest Trends), and The Sustainability Consortium. The coalition has developed an assessment framework that combines existing data with interviews of NYDF signatory companies and members of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA). Partners seek to enhance the collective momentum of initiatives that assess and track supply chain initiatives, with the aim to integrate new developments into existing work programs in the future.

The assignment is supported by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) and the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA). The New York Declaration Assessment Coalition is comprised of EDF, the Carbon Disclosure Project, Forest Trends, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Global Canopy Programme,  Rainforest Alliance, The Sustainability Consortium, Woods Hole Institute, World Resources Institute, among others.