This Manifesto is a collective industry commitment to work together to ensure all physical shipments of soy to the UK are deforestation and conversion free (cut-off date of January 2020 at the latest), fully implemented immediately where possible and no later than 2025.
to work together to achieve this goal and request that their suppliers adopt the same commitments and incorporate these requirements within commercial contractual
requirements. All signatories commit to publicly disclosing on their progress annually.
Working together across supply chains to develop joined up, pragmatic implementation plans, building on existing industry activity and best practice.
The UK Government supports the objectives of the Manifesto
Set a deforestation and conversion-free commitment with a cut-off date of January 2020 or earlier.
Ask direct suppliers to adopt and cascade the same commitment
Integrate Manifesto commitments within direct supplier commercial contractual requirements, and support compliance
Publicly disclose progress
Encourage harmonised monitoring, verification, and reporting
Create a detailed and public action plan
Applied to all soy
Aligned with the Accountability Framework
Working with direct suppliers
Agreeing transition plans
Creating a level playing field
Proactively engage & support direct suppliers
Proactively Support industry-led solutions
Annual reporting
Continual Improvement
Transparency
Supporting the development of a Manifesto monitoring, reporting and verification system
“The UK Government welcomes the leadership role UK companies are taking to drive the transition to deforestation-free soy supply chains through the UK Soy Manifesto.
Ensuring sustainable supply chains that protect landscapes and create positive outcomes for all actors in the supply chain is important to the UK and to meeting our global climate ambitions. In support of these objectives, UK Government is establishing a new due diligence obligation through the Environment Bill.
The UK Government also commits to continue to work with partner producer and consumer governments critical to soy supply chains to ensure that the enabling environment is established to support shared objectives, including through our co-leaderships of the COP 26 Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Dialogue.
Initiatives like the manifesto can complement these efforts to increase transparency and bring about the needed industry leadership that will prove vital in meeting our climate and environment objectives.”
The commitment should be supported by a publicly available, detailed action plan and fully implemented as soon as possible but no later than 2025.
Signatories explicitly commit to eliminating deforestation and the conversion of other natural ecosystems from soy supply chains with a cut-off date of January 2020 or earlier.
Pre-existing or emerging sectoral or biome-wide cut-off dates that are earlier than January 2020 should be upheld). This will be verified using the most relevant official annual data sources including the period up to January 2020 at the latest.
The commitments should apply to all soy supplied by the company (or used/embedded within products) for the UK market.
The Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) is a collaborative effort to build and scale up ethical supply chains for agricultural and forestry products., led by a diverse global coalition of environmental and human rights organisations.
The coalition supports companies and other stakeholders in setting strong supply chain goals, taking effective action, and tracking progress to create clear accountability and incentivize rapid improvement.
The commitment should encompass both legal and illegal conversion, as defined by the Accountability Framework.
Signatories will seek direct supplier commitment to no-deforestation/conversion soy with a cut-off date (of no later than January 2020). Suppliers will also be encouraged to adopt and apply Manifesto commitments within their broader sourcing policies, to soy supplied to other markets.
For those signatories selling or trading branded products, they will encourage branded suppliers to make similar commitments in line with the Manifesto
Signatories will agree transition plans with suppliers to achieve the Manifesto commitment with a target date for full implementation as soon as possible but no later than 2025
Manifesto commitments will be applied to non-UK direct suppliers of soy (or products containing soy or embedded soy) as well as those based in the UK, to ensure a level playing field.
Proactively engage and support direct suppliers towards compliance with the Manifesto goal and ensure that there are appropriate commercial consequences for non-compliance.
The Manifesto commitments (including a cut-off date of 2020 at the latest) should be fully integrated within all commercial contractual requirements and buying/procurement processes, either directly (e.g., Manifesto requirements written into contracts) or indirectly (e.g., contracts require compliance to separately documented buying policies including the Manifesto).
Signatory companies should have clear policies and procedures for how non-compliance will be addressed including the pathway back to compliance that rewards good faith and effective efforts by suppliers to work towards deforestation and conversion free soy. For more information, please refer to AFi guidance on supply chain management.
Signatories will identify opportunities to support mass market change, particularly where individual companies may have limited leverage and/or capacity for change.
Signatories will publicly report at least annually on progress towards the Manifesto commitments.
It is expected that the detail of reporting will improve over time, as companies advance. A more experienced company might provide:
Size of soy footprint, location (sub-national if possible), and proportion which is verified deforestation and conversion free by volume and if possible, by hectares.
The soy traders present in the supply chain, including the percentage of total soy volume sourced from each trader, along with the company’s efforts to engage with soy traders towards an effective industry-wide solution.
Signatories agree that transparency is a requirement for entry into the UK market and commit to improved traceability and transparent reporting across supply chains.
The Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system will aim to provide: a public set of indicators to provide a baseline for UK soy supply chains risk and an understanding of high-risk sourcing areas to focus our collective efforts.
The MRV system will provide a measurement of the collective progress of Manifesto signatory actions; and be a source of information for signatories to verify and corroborate their own supply chain risk assessments
