Preface The International Institute for Environment and Development

Document begins: Preface The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), ProForest and Rabobank International were commissioned by the International Finance Corporation (IFC)'s Corporate Citizenship Facility and WWF-US to research the environmental and social issues associated with the production of a wide range of agribusiness commodities. The project aimed to understand how useful the development and application of `Better Management Practices' (BMPs) would be for these commodities. Specifically, the project has sought to provide guidance on: · the commodities future initiatives should focus on; · the potential partners for these initiatives; and · the key opportunities and constraints associated with each commodity. The first phase consisted of a scoping review, which involved the collection of basic data and industry intelligence on each of ten commodities (cocoa, coffee, cotton, oil palm, salmon, shrimp, soy, sugar, tea and timber pulp). At the end of the first phase, IFC and WWF-US selected four commodities (cotton, palm oil, soy and sugar) for further investigation, on account of the perceived magnitude of sustainability impacts, financial sector traction, and the potential added value of an IFC/WWF initiative for each commodity. This report is the product of the second phase of the project and is intended as ...