The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), a charity founded in 1826, is a world-renowned centre of excellence for conservation science and applied conservation. ZSL’s mission is to promote and achieve the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. This is realised by carrying out field conservation and research in over 50 countries across the globe and through education and awareness-raising at our two zoos, ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, inspiring people to lead more sustainable lives and to support and enable direct conservation action.
ZSL recognises the significant threat posed by irresponsible and unsustainable business practice to global biodiversity and the landscapes in which we work. The Business and Biodiversity programme works to address these threats and to deliver a ZSL mission target to ensure best practice becomes business-as-usual. SPOTT is ZSL’s flagship initiative to deliver this, addressing the lack of corporate transparency and accountability that hinders progress towards sustainability. Our vision for SPOTT is that companies report transparently on the implementation of best practice and can be held accountable to this. SPOTT currently monitors 70 oil palm producers and traders representing over half of global oil palm landbank, 50 timber producers and traders and will shortly be releasing assessments of rubber companies against a framework of best practice. The tool provides resources and guidance for the companies and investors to monitor and manage ESG risk. SPOTT has more than 200,000 website views from over 32,000 unique users and is an established and trusted dataset enabling informed engagement between financiers, producers and traders.
