World’s Biggest Butcher Follows Fossil Fuel’s Lead
Meat giant JBS pledges “net-zero emissions”
Like the fossil fuel industry before it, the meat and dairy industry is engaged in a global effort to greenwash destructive practices and cover up its significant contribution to climate change. A “net-zero emissions” commitment recently released by JBS, the Brazilian-owned meat giant, is a page right out of the big oil and gas playbook.
And like the fossil fuel industry, meat and dairy corporations have twisted data to downplay their environmental impacts. An analysis from New York University found the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies, including JBS, invested fortunes in influencing climate politics and helped fund research to downplay the connection between animal agriculture and climate change. Before JBS’ announcement, only four of the 35 companies studied had committed to achieving net-zero emissions, and not a single major company in the meat and poultry sector had done so.
A closer look at JBS’ vow to “act urgently” to address climate change reveals little action and an unconscionably slow timeline that will keep us hurtling past global emissions-reduction targets.
Without a strong commitment to eliminate deforestation, JBS can’t achieve the environmental improvements we need. Yet JBS plans to take four years just to crack down on illegal Amazon deforestation in its supply chain, and the company is waiting until 2035 to end deforestation altogether.
Meanwhile, Amazon deforestation has been at its highest rate in more than a decade. In a single year, more than a quarter of a million fire alerts, which are directly linked to deforestation, were issued in the region connected to JBS. With this company’s practices, how much of the Amazon will even be left by 2035?
We have less than a decade to mitigate climate catastrophe, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And we can’t meet global emissions-reduction targets without reducing meat and dairy production and consumption. But even for renewable energy use — low-hanging fruit for a meat processor trying to reduce emissions — JBS sets its 100% renewable energy commitment on a nearly 20-year timeline.
It’s hard to overstate the staggering size and influence of JBS. Worldwide, JBS slaughters 13 million animals every single day and boasts an annual revenue of nearly $50 billion (USD). The company is one of the top three emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in the meat and dairy sector. It’s one of four companies that dominate 85% of U.S. beef production; one of two companies that control 40% of U.S. poultry production; and one of four companies controlling nearly 70% of the U.S. pork market.
Yet the world’s largest butcher keeps growing. The day after JBS announced its climate commitment, it also reported record-breaking profits. Its revenue in 2019 was also higher than any previous year, no doubt aided by the farm bailout, which purchased nearly 2 million pounds of pork products from JBS and awarded the company $78 million in U.S. government pork contracts.
JBS’ bailout was larger than any other U.S. pork producer despite the company reporting more domestic meat and poultry sales than any other company.
Although this multibillion dollar company claims sustainability is “one of its strategic pillars,” it invests less than 1% of its revenue in sustainability initiatives. Its willingness to invest in climate solutions is even less. JBS has committed a paltry $100 million over nearly a decade, which is less than a quarter of a percent of its annual revenue, to improving farming practices that could help mitigate climate change.
While JBS makes enormous profits, aided by government payouts, the cost to the rest of us is incalculable. Meat and dairy production takes up more than one-third of Earth’s habitable land and is the leading cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss. It’s responsible for more than 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. If production continues to grow as projected, JBS and the other four largest meat and dairy companies could be responsible for more than 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Bold commitments to rapidly reduce the impacts of meat and dairy production are long overdue. But the reality behind JBS’ headline is nothing more than an empty promise.
The meat and dairy sector is killing the planet. And just like the fossil fuel industry, they’re hoping we’ll swallow these hollow claims without noticing that we’re choking until it’s too late.
Companies like JBS must be held accountable to corporate commitments with teeth, including protections for people and the land, plus a plan to shift from meat production to planet-friendly foods. Business as usual is unacceptable. We need to transform how we grow food — and what we grow — if we’re going to curb climate change and create a just, resilient food system.
Stephanie Feldstein is the Population and Sustainability Director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
