Pledge overview

AZ Forest is a global initiative to plant and steward 50 million trees worldwide by 2025. In partnership with local governments and One Tree Planted, a non-profit organisation focused on global reforestation, the initiative supports 1t.org, the World Economic Forum's Trillion Trees platform. AstraZeneca's AZ Forest programme is part of the company's work to address climate change, together with its Ambition Zero Carbon strategy. AstraZeneca recognises the strong connection between a healthy planet and healthy people, and works to foster environments in which all life can thrive.

Trees are a nature-based solution to remove CO2 and are essential to mitigate the effects of climate change. Reforestation has a number of sustainability co-benefits, including:
- Reducing air pollution, leading to improved air quality;
- Cooling the environment by providing shade from the sun, helping manage surface and air temperatures;
- Reduce the risk of natural disasters, such as floods and landslides;
- Support a healthy water cycle by increasing flows in the dry season and reducing flooding in heavy rainfall;
- Foster biodiversity;
- Help increase physical activity in the local community through additional green space

Our ecologically and socially responsible approach

We work with our planting partners to ensure that ecological and social issues are integrated into our projects at the design stage. We also have a series of guiding principles that we follow which are described later in this pledge. We have a range of planting partners that currently include One Tree Planted, Greening Australia, Friends of the National Park (Kalimantan) and Trees for Trees (Citarum River). Other partnerships are under development. For example, the agroforestry project at the Citarum River, Indonesia has explicitly included human rights and modern-day slavery consideration within the project design given we will be working with >30,000 farming communities – the project states “respect for Human Rights is a guiding principle for the project partners. A monitoring and reporting framework will be established to assure that the activities of all participants in the project are carried out in fair and lawful ways. A hotline will be established to allow anonymous reporting in local language of cases of potential abuse.”

We will look to comply with relevant recognized standards and guidelines for socially and environmental responsible nature-based solution as they develop; including alignment with the IUCN Global Standard for nature-based solutions to global challenges and the guiding principles of Forest Landscape Restoration. We do have our own guiding principles that we followed for all projects that precede some guidance. These include:
(i) involving local people that will be impacted by the project (e.g. landowners, communities, governments, etc.) and ensure common goals are sought,
(ii) monitoring trees to ensure survival,
(iii) Scheduling the planting for a period that is appropriate for local seasons and climate conditions,
(iv) selecting tree species that are locally appropriate and will stand the test of time,
(v) ensuring there is a long term strategy to protect the area and trees as well as a risk mitigation plan (e.g. to prevent fires, encroachment, etc.),
(vi) considering land ownership and associated rights,
(vii) verifying that location of planting is aligned to impact objectives and clear co-benefits (social, economic and environmental),
(viii) determining possible negative impacts (e.g. on local communities, water, biodiversity, etc.),
(ix) testing soil for suitability prior to planting,
(x) reviewing local and national regulations,
(xi) reporting baseline metrics from local partner, # trees died (tree mortality); # trees planted; # trees planted by species; latitude and longitude coordinates etc.

Our results tracking

Ecological metrics

All projects will have annual reports from after the trees are planted until the end of the contract/ monitoring period. The annual reports that will contain communication assets (photography, stories from farmers, etc.), highlights (challenges/risks, big wins, plans for following year) and metrics, including and not limited to: (i) Number of trees planted (ii) Acres of forest habitat restored and number acres of forest under improved management (iii) Number of trees produced in the nurseries (iv) Increases in target species and associated biodiversity monitoring reports (v) Water restoration impacts (ex. reductions in sedimentation in the rivers) baseline and end results (vi) Miles of stream-side forest planted (vii) Reductions in polluted runoff (viii) Number of hectares of forest or each type established (ix) Increase of carbon stock in the landscape (Tons of CO2e)

Social metrics

All projects will have annual reports from after the trees are planted until the end of the contract/ monitoring period. The annual reports that will contain communication assets (photography, stories from farmers, etc.), highlights (challenges/risks, big wins, plans for following year) and metrics, including and not limited to: (x) number of volunteers involved, (xi) number of farming families that benefit (xii) number of employees and other staff involved, number of farming families that will benefit, ecological benefits including the range of endangered species protected, number of local people trained in new skills, (xiii) nature and number of jobs created directly through this project, (xiv) shade provided (xv) educational outreach activities to schools and colleges, metrics that (xvi) link planting initiatives to positive health and wellbeing metrics (xvii) smallholder forestry in terms of crop production, business management marketing their produce. (xviii) additional socioeconomic impact metrics as they arise

Our system of accreditation

All our tree planting will be subject to independent third-party verification by Bureau Veritas on an annual basis as we have KPIs that are captured in our Sustainability Report. This will ensure that we will have independent assurance of our goal to have 50 million surviving trees by 2025 and it will also address the accuracy of any co-benefit claims whether environmental or social. Planting initiatives where we capture carbon credits will be subject to scrutiny under the relevant verification scheme (e.g. VCS, Gold Standard).

Our partners

One Tree Planted, Greening Australia, Friends of the National Parks Foundation, Trees for Trees, City for Trees and European Forestry Institute. Other partnerships are in development.

Our locations

We are working at locations across Australia, Indonesia, United Kingdom (UK), and United States of America (USA).

We are working in Kalimantan National Park, Indonesia; Citarum River, Indonesia; and across various locations in Southern Australia. We are also finalising new projects in Africa, Europe and North America.