On January 4, Greenpeace questioned JBS about its raw material procurement process. Based on a superficial analysis of information about the Company, the NGO came to conclusions that turned out to be mistaken.
For the sake of transparency, we give below a summary of the responses sent to the NGO, as well as the full text of the correspondence between JBS and Greenpeace, including detailed clarifications about each case listed.
We undertook an individual analysis of the properties listed by Greenpeace and we can assure you that 100% of the farms that sold raw materials to the Company were compliant with all the prerequisites of the JBS Responsible Procurement Policy at the time of purchase.
JBS asked Greenpeace for fundamental information so that it could do a detailed assessment of the data presented. It transpires that in 6 of the 18 cases listed, the alleged irregularity was not even presented. In the other cases, the suspicions raised are based on criteria that are neither part of Brazilian legislation, nor of the industry procurement protocols approved by the Federal Prosecution Office (www.beefontrack.org).
In one of these cases, the reasoning of Greenpeace defies logic: the NGO associates purchases by JBS in 2018 and 2019 with the fires in the Pantanal, which were to occur one year later, in 2020. Moreover, Greenpeace accuses a farmer who is not a supplier of JBS of being one of those responsible for starting those fires, based on a simple “online search” as the NGO itself admits.
JBS repudiates any aggression or violence against the environment. To clarify the case, even in the absence of any registration of that livestock farmer on the active supplier bases of JBS, it was also possible to verify through an “online search” that the inquiry is at the investigative phase.
Among the cases the NGO examined, there are no farms that sold to JBS. Greenpeace refused to produce the evidence it alleges having about the upstream links in our production chain, which would enable the Company to enhance its supplier due diligence process.
JBS is taking on the challenge of making it possible to monitor all the links of its production chain, as it already does with its suppliers. Our monitoring system uses satellite imagery, geo-referenced data of the farms and information from government bodies based on the daily analysis of over 50,000 cattle farms. The monitoring has already lead to 9,000 properties being blocked for non-compliance with socioenvironmental criteria.
The NGO would make a much more significant contribution to protecting the environment if it used the information to which it alleges having had access, presumably legally, to prevent purchases from producers that do not meet the socioenvironmental criteria.
Implementation of sustainability policies in complex production chains, like that of the beef sector in Brazil, is a huge challenge that can only be fully overcome through the joint efforts and commitment of all stakeholders.
Check out below the full text of the documents:
01/04/2021 – Letter and spreadsheet of cases for analysis sent by Greenpeace to JBS.
01/11/2021 – Letter from JBS requesting clarifications from Greenpeace.
01/12/2021 – Letter from Greenpeace in response to JBS.
01/14/2021 – Letter from JBS and spreadsheet of cases analyzed sent to Greenpeace.