The Hershey Co. has released action plans against deforestation under the company’s commitments as a founding member of the Cocoa & Forest Initiative. 

The Government of Colombia — along with its two largest cocoa companies, Casa Luker and Compañía Nacional de Chocolates, and the National Cocoa Federation — has committed to eliminate deforestation from the country’s cocoa supply chain by 2020.  

The Hershey Co. has joined the ranks of major cocoa and chocolate companies prohibiting new deforestation in its global cocoa supply chain, with the goal of stopping ongoing deforestation and protecting forests in cocoa-growing regions

Deerfield, Ill.-based Mondelēz International today announced it will partner with the Forestry Commission of Ghana, Ghana Cocoa Board and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to reduce deforestation and forest degradation in the country while simultaneously reducing emissions in its cocoa supply chain.

Alongside leading cocoa and chocolate companies, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have adopted new standards to end deforestation and restore forest areas, the countries and companies announced Thursday.

In a just released report titled “Chocolate’s Dark Secret,” Mighty Earth, a global environmental campaign organization, claimed that 90 percent of protected national parks in the Ivory Coast have been deforested for growing cocoa while Ghana was undergoing a similar process. 

Environmental advocacy group Greenpeace has suspended its campaign against palm oil supplier IOI Group after the Malaysian firm announced a commitment to address deforestation and exploitation in its supply chain.