Mondelez International’s Cocoa Life program is making a “landmark” pledge that by 2025 all Mondelez chocolate brands will source their cocoa sustainably through the initiative. Currently, 43% of the company’s chocolate sources cocoa through Cocoa Life, so there is a long way to go to reach the six-year target, however, the confectionery giant says it is on track.

The commitment comes as the program – which helps to create a thriving cocoa supply chain by providing educational and financial support to cocoa farmers to improve crop yield and preventing deforestation – publishes its Annual Report. In other sustainability-related news, Nestlé announced a milestone whereby 77% of its agricultural commodities are verified as deforestation-free.

Under half of Mondelez’s chocolate already carries the Cocoa Life logo, including Milka, Cadbury Dairy Milk and Côte d’Or, but other brands such as Toblerone and Lacta will also come onboard. The company says Cocoa Life is an excellent example of a self-verification program going above and beyond industry standards and this expansion will see an increase in the number of farmers and communities Mondelez supports across six cocoa origin countries: Ghana, Ivory, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil.

The 2025 commitment closely follows Mondelez and Nestlé laying out action plans to expand programs to combat deforestation in West African cocoa-growing regions. As part of a drive to scale-up their efforts to eliminate deforestation and restore forests in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, some of the biggest players in the cocoa supply chain published their pledges on how to move towards deforestation-free commodities by 2020, while also improving transparency and traceability in the cocoa supply chain.