NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Olivia Dakeyne

According to Global Canopy, US$6.1 trillion in funding was provided to the 350 companies with the greatest risk exposures to tropical deforestation by some 150 financial institutions in 2023. This is bad news for the financial sector—and the world at large—since deforestation is responsible for a range of devastating environmental and social impacts and poses a serious threat to global efforts to tackle climate change. Deforestation—covering the destruction, conversion or degradation of natural forests—is perhaps the most widely discussed form of land conversion (a broader term that covers land-use changes—for example, into agricultural land—across a range of different biomes, such as savannah, grassland and marshland, not merely forested areas).

Photo courtesy of CIFOR.