Key takeaway
The Forests module asks how your business interacts with forested ecosystems through commodity sourcing, land-use change, and downstream impacts. CDP's Forests theme has historically focused on six commodities: timber, soy, palm oil, cattle products, cocoa, coffee, and rubber, with paper and pulp as a derivative theme. The 2026 unified questionnaire keeps this commodity focus and asks for traceability, deforestation-free sourcing, and policy. This lesson explains who has Forests exposure, the question structure, and how to answer when your forests footprint is not where you expect it to be.
Who has Forests exposure
CDP Forests applies to any company that produces, processes, trades, or uses one of the priority forest-risk commodities, directly or indirectly through their supply chain.
| Sector | Typical Forests exposure |
|---|---|
| FMCG / Food | Palm oil (in food and personal care), soy (animal feed), cocoa, coffee, paper packaging |
| Apparel / Textiles | Viscose / rayon (wood-based), leather (cattle), packaging (paper) |
| Furniture / Building products | Timber, paper-based materials |
| Automotive | Leather (interiors), rubber (tyres) |
| Pharmaceuticals | Paper (packaging), some natural ingredients |
| Real estate / Construction | Timber, paper |
| Financial services | Financed exposure to all the above sectors |
A company that thinks "we have no forests exposure" almost always has paper and packaging exposure at minimum. Many also have hidden exposure through ingredients (palm-derived emulsifiers in personal care, soy in animal feed for dairy), which the question framework surfaces.
What the module covers
The Forests module typically runs through:
- Commodity-by-commodity disclosure. For each of the priority commodities you handle, what volume, what origin, what traceability status.
- Risk assessment. Where in your supply chain is deforestation risk highest, and how do you assess it.
- Targets. Deforestation-free sourcing targets, cut-off dates, and progress.
- Engagement. Supplier engagement, traceability investments, and certification programmes.
- Policy. Your published policy on no-deforestation, no-peatland, no-exploitation.
- Performance. Year-on-year change in deforestation-free volume.
Not every commodity needs the same depth. CDP expects you to disclose all that are material to your business, with depth scaled to materiality.
Why traceability dominates the Forests scoring
CDP's view: you cannot manage what you cannot trace. The single largest scoring lever in Forests is traceability to source.
| Traceability level | What it means | CDP scoring impact |
|---|---|---|
| None / mass balance | You buy the commodity but cannot identify the country, region, or farm of origin | Disclosure tier at best |
| Country level | You know which countries the commodity comes from | Awareness tier |
| Regional / sub-national | You know which regions or states | Management tier |
| Mill or processor | You know which specific mill or processor | Management to Leadership |
| Farm or plot level | You can identify the specific farm or plot of origin (and ideally have geo-coordinates) | Leadership tier |
The EUDR (EU Deforestation Regulation), in effect from late 2025, explicitly requires plot-level traceability with GPS coordinates for any importer of the priority commodities into the EU. This is now the regulatory baseline for any company exporting to the EU.
Analogy
Traceability is to Forests scoring what carbon accounting consolidation is to Climate scoring. It is the foundation that everything else is built on. A company that does not know where its palm oil comes from is in the same scoring position as a company that does not know which facilities are in its inventory boundary. CDP cannot meaningfully score deforestation risk without knowing the origin.
Certification schemes
Several certification schemes are recognised in the Forests space:
- RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil): the dominant scheme for palm oil. Tiers: Identity Preserved, Segregated, Mass Balance, Book and Claim.
- FSC (Forest Stewardship Council): timber and paper. The most widely recognised forest certification globally.
- PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification): also timber and paper, with broader European acceptance.
- RTRS (Round Table on Responsible Soy): soy. Less widely adopted than RSPO equivalents.
- Rainforest Alliance / UTZ (now merged): cocoa, coffee, tea.
- GRSB (Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef): beef and leather.
CDP does not require certification, but rewards it as a form of third-party verified traceability and risk management. The Leadership tier is reached when certification is supplemented with direct supply-chain verification (audits, GPS-mapping, satellite monitoring).
Worked example: a chocolate manufacturer
Worked example
ChocoCo India Ltd (synthetic). Year 1 to Year 3 progression.
Year 1. Sources cocoa from a distributor based in Mumbai. Distributor is RSPO-certified for palm derivatives but provides no chain-of-custody data on cocoa. ChocoCo buys without questioning origin.
CDP Forests disclosure Year 1:
- Commodity: cocoa. Volume: 1,200 tonnes annually. Origin: not known. Certification: none. Traceability: none. Disclosure tier on commodity questions.
Year 2. ChocoCo joins the World Cocoa Foundation, requires their distributor to provide country-of-origin data. Discovers their cocoa is sourced from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Indonesia, with rough percentages.
CDP Forests Year 2:
- Commodity: cocoa. Volume: 1,200 tonnes. Origin: 60 percent Ghana, 25 percent Cote d'Ivoire, 15 percent Indonesia. Risk assessment: West African cocoa has documented deforestation risk in primary forests; Indonesian cocoa lower volume but biodiversity-sensitive regions. Awareness tier.
Year 3. ChocoCo requires the distributor to source through a Rainforest Alliance certified pathway and to provide regional traceability. Joins the Cocoa & Forests Initiative.
CDP Forests Year 3:
- Commodity: cocoa. Volume: 1,200 tonnes. Origin: 70 percent Ghana (specific cooperatives identified), 20 percent Cote d'Ivoire (regional traceability), 10 percent Indonesia (mill-level traceability). Certification: 65 percent Rainforest Alliance certified. Risk assessment: third-party satellite monitoring on Ghana sourcing; deforestation risk score below threshold for 90 percent of volume. Management tier.
Year 4 plan. Direct cooperative engagement in Ghana with farm-level GPS mapping. Target: 80 percent of cocoa traceable to producer level by 2027. This would push to Leadership tier on the cocoa commodity questions.
The progression illustrates how Forests scoring rewards multi-year supply chain investment.
Sectors with low or no Forests exposure
Some companies legitimately have minimal Forests exposure: pure software firms, pure financial services without forest-risk financed activity, telecoms with limited paper consumption.
For these companies, the right answer is: declare Forests theme as not material based on a documented materiality assessment, and disclose the small exposure (paper procurement, packaging) honestly.
The wrong answer is to pretend high engagement on a low-materiality theme. The grader notices.
Paper and packaging, the universal exposure
Almost every company purchases paper. Most consumer-facing companies have packaging. Both are forest-risk commodities.
Even for companies without commodity-driven primary exposure, paper and packaging are typically disclosed as a Forests sub-theme. The expected answer:
- Volume of paper purchased annually
- Source breakdown (recycled content, virgin from certified sources, virgin from uncertified)
- Certification (FSC, PEFC) percentages
- Targets (e.g., 100 percent FSC-certified paper by 2027)
For a non-commodity-heavy company, this small disclosure can be a Management-tier answer on the Forests theme without major investment.
How Forests connects to climate and biodiversity
Deforestation is one of the largest sources of land-use emissions (Scope 3 Category 1 for most consumer goods firms). It is also the largest driver of biodiversity loss in tropical regions. CDP rewards integrated answers that show:
- Deforestation-free sourcing in the Forests module
- The same emissions covered in Scope 3 Category 1 (with FLAG SBTi target if applicable)
- The same supply chains addressed in the Biodiversity module
- The same engagement reported in supplier engagement (Module 11)
This cross-theme coherence is one of the defining marks of an A-list responder.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires companies importing the priority commodities into the EU to provide GPS coordinates of the production plots, demonstrating no deforestation since 31 December 2020. EUDR-compliant companies have already built the infrastructure that CDP rewards at Leadership tier: plot-level traceability, third-party verification, and risk assessment. For Indian and global exporters to the EU, EUDR readiness essentially equals CDP Forests Leadership tier readiness. The two requirements are converging.
Key Takeaways
- CDP Forests covers timber, soy, palm oil, cattle products, cocoa, coffee, rubber, plus paper and pulp as a derivative theme; almost every company has at least paper exposure
- Traceability to source is the single largest scoring lever; farm or plot level traceability with GPS coordinates is the Leadership tier
- Certification schemes (RSPO, FSC, RTRS, Rainforest Alliance) add scoring value but are not by themselves Leadership tier; direct verification is what closes the gap
- Companies with low Forests exposure should declare it as not material and disclose paper / packaging honestly; pretending high engagement on a low-materiality theme is penalised
- EUDR compliance from 2025 onwards is essentially CDP Forests Leadership tier readiness; building EUDR systems also serves CDP
Knowledge Check
Test what you just learned
6 questions · check each one as you go
Which commodities are within CDP Forests scope?
Select all that apply
Which industry has high Forests exposure even when it does not source commodities directly?
True or false: Country-level traceability earns Leadership tier on Forests scoring.
Which is true about EUDR compliance?
Which certification scheme is most relevant for palm oil?
Match each commodity to its primary certification scheme.
Match each item to its pair
Palm oil
Timber and paper
Soy
Cocoa, coffee, tea
Beef and leather