Welcome to the BIER Workstream Feature Series, where we’re sharing a closer look at the collaborative initiatives, technical expertise, and practical resources that advance environmental sustainability across the beverage sector. Each feature will highlight one of BIER’s active workstreams, exploring the challenges being addressed, the value being delivered to members, and the role collective action plays in supporting industry-wide progress.
Read the first article in the series, Inside the Water, Energy, and Emissions Benchmarking Study.
This month, we are highlighting BIER’s SBTi No-Deforestation Disclosure Best Practices Workstream. Developed in response to evolving Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) requirements, the workstream brings members together to develop practical guidance that supports consistent, transparent public disclosures related to no-deforestation commitments. By collaborating on common approaches, members are better equipped to respond to changing sustainability expectations and support credible environmental reporting across the beverage sector.
To learn more, we spoke with Audrey Beattie, Sustainability Senior Manager and BIER’s SBTi No-Deforestation Disclosure Best Practices Workstream Lead.
The purpose of this workstream is to help BIER members better understand and respond to evolving SBTi Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) disclosure requirements by developing practical guidance for public no-deforestation disclosures.
Through technical collaboration and shared expertise, the workstream provides members with a common framework for communicating their no-deforestation commitments. This helps improve consistency and alignment with emerging expectations and promotes transparency while recognizing that implementation approaches may vary by company.
As sustainability frameworks continue to evolve, companies are navigating increasingly detailed expectations related to environmental reporting and public disclosure. The SBTi FLAG disclosure requirements are no exception. No-deforestation commitments were introduced with the launch of the SBTi’s FLAG target-setting guidance, which focuses on land use change and land management emissions. These commitments require companies to track deforestation-relevant commodities in their supply chains and ensure they are deforestation-free. For beverage companies, this means a range of agricultural products used as ingredients as well as timber for paper-based packaging.
The updated version of the FLAG guidance, published earlier this year, requires companies to go a step further. In addition to the commitment, companies must publish documentation that gives greater detail into the implementation processes put in place to achieve the target. This workstream addresses the need for practical guidance that helps members interpret the new SBTi FLAG disclosure requirements, allowing them to communicate their commitments and progress in a clear, consistent, and credible manner.
The guidance we developed focuses on key reporting elements, including communicating commitments, identifying in-scope commodities, describing monitoring approaches, sharing progress, and outlining future implementation activities in a manner that supports transparent and meaningful disclosure.
As environmental sustainability reporting continues to become more complex, comparability becomes increasingly important. By developing shared best practices, the workstream helps members better understand the disclosure expectations and encourages greater consistency across the beverage industry. Aligning on something as simple as definitions, for example, ensures that disclosures from different companies are using the same language to describe their implementation approaches.
The collaborative nature of the workstream also allows members to learn from one another regarding implementation of these targets and identify shared challenges to making progress on commitments.
Expectations for environmental sustainability reporting have evolved beyond target setting, putting greater emphasis on demonstrating how commitments will be implemented and monitored. Aligning BIER members’ approaches to implementation through this workstream supports expanded reporting that remains credible and comparable.
This workstream helps members focus more time and resources on advancing sustainability targets by reducing the effort needed to keep up with evolving reporting requirements. As target-setting standards such as SBTi evolve, initiatives to share best practices and align approaches are incredibly important to reduce duplicative effort. This allows the focus to stay on implementation and continuous progress against these and other sustainability targets.
One important takeaway is that beyond disclosure of the commitments themselves, which tend to be consistent, there is significant variability in the approaches to implementation and monitoring. Material commodities and geographies, available data, and measurement approaches depend on the size and/or supply chain of a specific company. This makes aligning the disclosure approach and sharing implementation best practices all the more important for transparency and comparability across the sector.
The SBTi No-Deforestation Disclosure Best Practices Workstream reflects BIER's commitment to helping members respond to emerging environmental sustainability challenges through technical collaboration and shared expertise.
By developing practical guidance that supports consistent environmental reporting and informed implementation, the workstream advances BIER's mission of strengthening collective action, supporting practical solutions, and helping members navigate an increasingly complex sustainability landscape.
Collaboration remains an important tool for helping organizations interpret new reporting expectations and share practical implementation approaches.
The SBTi No-Deforestation Disclosure Best Practices Workstream demonstrates how BIER members collaborate to address emerging sustainability requirements through technical expertise, shared learning, and practical guidance. By developing resources that support consistent, credible disclosures, the workstream helps members strengthen transparency while contributing to broader environmental sustainability efforts across the beverage sector.
Stay tuned for future editions of the BIER Workstream Feature Series as we continue to highlight the collaborative initiatives, technical expertise, and practical resources that help advance environmental sustainability across the global beverage industry.