European companies that use soy for animal feed or animal products are not doing nearly enough to encourage responsible growers to reduce the negative impacts of soy production, according to a new analysis from WWF.

Making its critical announcement from Brazil, where the corporate-NGO initiative Round Table on Responsible Soy's (RTRS) annual meeting is taking place this week, the charity said feed companies had performed poorly in its 2014 analysis.

The Roundtable on Responsible soy was established in 2006, having been proposed the previous year when the Basel Criteria for Responsible Soy Production failed to gather 'multi-stakeholder support'. The Roundtable has come under fire from environmentalists for offering weaker requirements on deforestation and pesticide application than earlier initiatives, which they claim makes it more palatable to corporate partners, but fails to deal with damaging situations on the ground. This has led to accusations that it may merely be serving to 'greenwash' corporations' image with flawed endorsements.

According to WWF's Soy Report Card 2014, national initiatives on responsible soy have spurred on better performance from companies on the whole. However, WWF soy spokesperson Sandra Mulder said, "Europe uses 34 million tonnes of soy a year and needs to take more responsibility for reducing deforestation, environmental degradation and social conflict in Latin America where that soy is mainly coming from."

The report surveyed 88 major retailers, producers and feed suppliers from Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. WWF said companies concentrated among retailers, consumer goods manufacturers and the dairy industry performed best in its analysis, but that "little interest was being shown" by most companies in the feed, meat and egg sectors.

"With around three quarters of soy globally going into animal and fish feed, WWF is pleased to bring some transparency to a supply chain characterized by unfamiliar companies relatively insulated from consumer concerns about what soy production might be doing to forests, communities or the global climate," Mulder added. "If we are to reduce the negative impacts of soy production, these are the companies that are going to have to lift their game, while the retailers and consumer product suppliers need to make sure that they do."

Fully half of the meat and egg companies and almost half of the feed manufacturers approached failed to respond to the environment NGO's survey. WWF also drew attention to a number of household names performing poorly in its Report Card, including Danone and Nandos, but noted that major supermarkets in the UK have taken the first steps towards supporting responsible soy – these include Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

The report suggested that national plans for responsible procurement have had a marked positive effect on companies, particularly in Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland (where a business-driven national plan has been introduced).

However, half of the 'responsible' soy produced has yet to find a buyer. "Taken into account current prices for soy, the additional costs for RTRS credits are negligible, less than half a percent," said Mulder. "There is no excuse for companies not to calculate their soy use and begin to cover it by RTRS credits now."