JBS vows to remove Amazon deforestation from supply chain in 5 years
In response to the growing pressure from investors and consumers in Brazil and abroad against deforestation in the country, JBS, the global leader in animal proteins, announced on Wednesday the creation of a program called "Together for the Amazon". It was the second Brazilian giant meatpacker to announce new goals on this front. The first was Marfrig, in July.
The initiative, which foresees full control over indirect cattle suppliers in the biome until 2025 - as already happens with direct ones, according to the company -, includes actions aimed to improve the supply chain, conservation and forest recovery, alongside support to communities and technological development. At the same time, it promotes the creation of a fund to finance sustainable actions and projects, initially with R$250 million."It is the recognition that we have a big challenge. The population will keep growing around the world and it needs to be fed in a sustainable way," CEO Gilberto Tomazoni says. According to him, the company already had focus on issues such climate change, the health and integrity of the meat it produces and the health of employees, and the new program reinforces these commitments.
To extend monitoring to indirect suppliers in the Amazon, JBS will use the blockchain platform. With authorization from direct suppliers, the idea is to have access to the Animal Transit Guides (GTA) of the other farmers, and everyone should be on the "Green Platform JBS" by 2025.
Using satellite images, the company has been monitoring for over a decade 50.000 farms in the biome, spread over 45 million hectares. "We have the largest supplier monitoring system in the world. We have done a lot, but we know that we can go further," says Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of meat processing company Seara and leader of JBS's business in Brazil.
"In 2009, we were experiencing a moment similar to the current one but involving only direct suppliers. Since then, we have made many investments and today we have a system with almost 100% precision," says Márcio Nappo, head of sustainability at JBS in Brazil.
Soon after 2009, when sustainability projects started to be implemented with collaboration between NGOs, the meat industry and the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF), deforestation in the Amazon, which was approaching 15,000 square kilometers per year, started to fall and stayed below 5,000 kilometers in 2012. Between 2013 and 2019, however, the level increased again to between 6,000 and...
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