Norway's Zero-Deforestation Pledge for Public Purchases Explained

Image: worldwildlife.org

Norway did not ban deforestation, and it never claimed to. What happened in late May 2016 was narrower and, in its own way, more practical: the Norwegian parliament asked the government to make sure that the things the state buys do not contribute to the destruction of rainforests. Campaigners at Rainforest Foundation Norway described it as the first national zero-deforestation commitment for public procurement anywhere in the world. This page explains what was actually decided, why government purchasing matters, what it covered, and how the idea has developed since.

What the Norwegian parliament decided in 2016

The decision came through the Storting's Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment, in its recommendation on Norway's national action plan for biodiversity. The committee asked the government to set requirements so that public procurement would not contribute to rainforest deforestation. Rainforest Foundation Norway reported the news on 26 May 2016.

Two things are worth noting. First, this was a direction to the government, not a finished rulebook; the details of which products, which suppliers and what proof would be required were left to ministries to work out. Second, it applied to purchases made by the state, such as food for public canteens, timber and paper for public buildings and offices, not to every product sold in Norwegian shops.

The same recommendation also asked the government to consider biodiversity in the investments of the Government Pension Fund Global, Norway's huge sovereign wealth fund, and to develop a separate biodiversity policy for it.

Nils Hermann Ranum of Rainforest Foundation Norway welcomed the move: "This is an important victory in the fight to protect the rainforest." His point was that many companies had already promised to drop suppliers linked to forest destruction, but governments had been slow to apply the same test to their own spending.

Why public procurement matters

Governments are among the largest buyers in any economy. Hospitals, schools, the armed forces, prisons and ministries all buy food, furniture, building materials, paper and fuel. When a state sets a rule for those contracts, suppliers who want the business have to trace where their raw materials come from.

That is why campaigners focus on procurement. A consumer boycott depends on millions of individual choices. A purchasing rule is applied once and then flows through every tender. It also sends a signal to markets: if a wealthy country refuses to pay for products linked to cleared forest, companies have a reason to invest in certification and traceability.

Image: earthtimes.org

The products behind tropical deforestation

The products named in connection with the decision were palm oil, soy, beef and timber, along with tropical timber and paper. These were not chosen at random. A study published in December 2015, cited by Rainforest Foundation Norway and Mongabay, found that between 2000 and 2011 the production of beef, soy, palm oil and wood products in seven countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea) was linked to about 40% of all tropical deforestation and 44% of the related carbon emissions.

• Beef: cattle pasture is the largest single driver of forest clearing in the Amazon.
• Soy: much of it is grown for animal feed, including feed imported by Europe.
• Palm oil: plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia have replaced large areas of lowland rainforest and peatland.
• Timber and paper: logging opens roads into forests and pulp plantations can replace natural forest.

The 2014 New York pledge behind it

The 2016 decision built on an earlier promise. At the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in September 2014, Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement calling for national commitments to deforestation-free supply chains, including through public purchasing of commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and timber.

The same summit produced the New York Declaration on Forests, a voluntary, non-binding pledge to halve the loss of natural forests by 2020 and end it by 2030, and to restore large areas of degraded land. It was endorsed by dozens of governments, sub-national governments, multinational companies, indigenous peoples' organisations and NGOs. When Norway acted in 2016, Ranum urged Germany and the UK to turn their part of the 2014 statement into similar commitments.

Norway's wider role in forest protection

The procurement pledge is a small piece of a much bigger Norwegian effort. Through its International Climate and Forest Initiative, Norway has paid billions of kroner to tropical countries for measured reductions in deforestation.

The best-known example is Brazil's Amazon Fund, set up in 2008, to which Norway was by far the largest donor, with Germany second. In August 2019, as deforestation rose under President Jair Bolsonaro, Norway and Germany suspended new payments, saying that the money depended on results. After Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the 2022 election, both countries said they were ready to resume funding, and in 2023 several donors announced new contributions.

This results-based approach is the same logic as the procurement rule: money flows only when forests are actually protected.

Myths and facts about the "deforestation ban"

Many viral versions of this story exaggerated what happened. Some points to keep straight:

• Myth: Norway banned deforestation. Norway's own forests were not the issue, and no general ban was passed. The decision concerned what the state buys from abroad.
• Myth: Norway banned all palm oil, soy and beef. The aim was to exclude products linked to deforestation, not whole commodities.
• Myth: the rules were in force immediately. The parliament asked the government to set requirements; implementation took time and its strictness depended on later guidelines.
• Overstated figures. Claims that rainforests will "completely vanish within 100 years" or that humans use exactly half again more than the planet provides should be read with care. The Global Footprint Network estimates that humanity's demand on nature is equal to more than 1.7 Earths, a widely cited but debated measure.

What has happened since

Norway's step was followed by bigger moves elsewhere. The most important is the European Union's regulation on deforestation-free products, adopted in 2023, which requires companies placing cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood on the EU market to show they were not produced on land deforested after 2020. Its application has been delayed, but it extends the idea from public purchasing to the whole market.

For readers, the practical takeaways are simple. Look for credible certification on palm oil, soy-fed meat, coffee, cocoa, wood and paper; ask public bodies you deal with, such as schools, councils and hospitals, whether their purchasing rules cover deforestation; and treat headlines that promise a total ban with healthy suspicion. Norway's 2016 decision mattered because it was specific and achievable, not because it ended deforestation overnight.

Sources: Rainforest Foundation Norway (26 May 2016): Norwegian state commits to zero deforestation; Mongabay (May 2016): Norway commits to zero deforestation; Wikipedia: New York Declaration on Forests; Wikipedia: Amazon Fund; Wikipedia: Earth Overshoot Day; first reported for English-language readers by Amanda Froelich at True Activist (9 June 2016). Images: worldwildlife.org, earthtimes.org.

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