A strong majority of Europeans think businesses are failing in their responsibility to protect the world’s forests and therefore support a new law to ban products that destroy them. Source: Timberbiz
A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Europeans (82%) believe businesses should not sell products that destroy the world’s forests and think (78%) that the government needs to ban products that drive deforestation. When informed that the European Parliament has proposed such a law, support rises to 81%.
This is one of several results emerging from a new poll of nine countries across the North, South, East and West of the European Union (EU), conducted in July by market research firm Globescan for a broad coalition of consumer and conservation organisations.
EU citizens consider the institutions most responsible for protecting forests to be performing the worst. Almost half of Europeans (46%) across all countries surveyed expect large companies to be the most responsible player in protecting forests. This belief was particularly strong among people with high-incomes and those who live in rural areas.
However, a large majority of Europeans (64%) believe big businesses are performing the worst when it comes to preventing deforestation, reinforcing the call to regulate the market to ensure only deforestation-free products are sold in the EU.
Nearly three in four Europeans (73%) say they are ready to act against businesses that make or sell products which drive deforestation by stopping buying from them altogether (37%), or by reducing how much they buy from them (36%). A smaller part of this group (15%) would go as far working to convince others they know to stop buying from them.
The risk of losing customers because of ties to deforestation is especially high in Spain and Italy, where nearly half would fully stop buying products from these companies.
On Tuesday 13 September, the European Parliament will vote on a new law that aims to guarantee citizens that the products they buy in the EU are deforestation-free. The poll shows that 8 in 10 Europeans support this deforestation-free law (81%) – at a much higher rate than support EU laws in general (32%).
This support is observed across voters of all the largest political parties in Europe and all age groups, with stronger support among those over 45.
Over 8 in 10 (81%) Europeans believe that, in addition to addressing deforestation, the law should require companies to stop selling products that violate the land rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Similarly, 82% of people surveyed think the law should cover products that degrade as well as destroy the world’s forests.
Deforestation is the biggest environmental concern across most EU countries, with almost 8 in 10 Europeans (77%) saying they are worried about the destruction and degradation of the world’s forests.
