Meat Impacts
Saving the Cerrado: Why Bunge, supermarkets and governments must act fast
New Mighty Earth report prompts leading supermarkets to investigate
Click on your language to read the report, the press release and watch the video
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The Cerrado savannah, Brazil’s “forgotten jewel,” is less well known than its neighbor the Amazon, but it is just as important in helping us stabilize our climate and protect nature. We need the Cerrado as much as we need the Amazon.
The Cerrado is in peril, disappearing at an alarming rate, becoming a deforestation hotspot. Half of its land surface has been lost, taken by the meat industry to rear cattle and grow soy for animal feed. Scientists warn it is vulnerable to ecosystem collapse, and risks becoming a barren wasteland, unable to support the people and wildlife who live there.
The Cerrado is the world’s largest and most diverse savannah, home to 5% of the world’s plant and animal species, including many that are endangered: the jaguar; the giant anteater and the maned wolf. It is home to many Indigenous and local communities.
Known as an ‘upside-down forest’, it stores around 13.7 billion tons of carbon in its soils and immense root system, equivalent to that of a tropical forest. It is also a major water source, but soy expansion to feed livestock in intensive farming systems, means it is becoming drier and hotter.
Deforestation in the Cerrado hit a record high of 353,200 hectares between January and May 2023, and recent figures from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show deforestation rates
rising steeply there incomparison to the Amazon, where rates are declining.
What’s the issue with soy?
Brazil is the world’s biggest producer of soy. It is estimated that over 20 million hectares of Brazil’s forest cover have been lost to soy growing in the last three decades. The Cerrado is at the epicentre of soy production and expansion. Across the world, the meat industry uses soy as a high protein feed for livestock, primarily to produce immense volumes of cheap meat as quickly as possible, stacked high on the shelves of global supermarkets.
Why Bunge?
US-based Bunge is one of the big international corporations that trades in soy for animal feed. It has ambitions to be the biggest, having just announced a merger with Dutch company Viterra, to form a $34BN agricultural giant.
With annual revenues of $67 billion, Bunge is the main supplier of soy animal feed to the meat industry in the European Union and is the trader with the greatest deforestation risk linked to soy in the Cerrado, after the two next worst commodities giants, ADM, and Cargill.
Bunge ships vast amounts of soy to Europe to feed animals in intensive farming systems, destined for the meat aisles of major supermarkets in France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands – for beef, poultry, pork, and dairy products. Markets in Europe are causing more deforestation in the Cerrado than anywhere else in the world.
What we found
Bunge recently bought soy from three farms responsible for the equivalent of 15,897 soccer pitches of deforestation in the Cerrado (11,351 ha), cleared after 2021. Our partner AidEnvironment also detected another five cases linked to an additional 14,598 hectares of deforestation that took place on soy farms in the Cerrado in early 2023, in high-risk areas where Bunge is the leading soy exporter.
Bunge confirmed to Mighty Earth that it has recently sourced soy directly from four of the eight farms named in our investigation – although it said the deforestation was legal under Brazilian law and failed to provide any further details.
Bunge told us that it does not have a deforestation cut-off date of 2020, and so will accept legally deforested, deforestation-risk, or deforestation-linked soy in its supply chain until 2025.
What has been the impact of our investigation?
We contacted 100 companies to ask if they had links to soy from Bunge in their meat supply chains. Five confirmed that they did, and several major supermarkets have acted, launching investigations. These include Carrefour and Casino in France, Ahold Delhaize and Jumbo in the Netherlands and Aldi South in Germany.
We need Bunge, supermarkets, and governments to do more and to do it fast to save the Cerrado, before it is too late.
Graphics : Rémi Cans, atypicalist.com
Mighty Earth files complaint with US Securities and Exchange Commission against JBS ‘green bonds’
“Some...business leaders are saying one thing – but doing another. Simply put, they are lying, and the results will be catastrophic.” UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, April 4, 2022
Washington DC, January 17, 2023 — Senior executives at Mighty Earth have filed a whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), calling for a full investigation into alleged misleading and fraudulent “green bonds” issued by the Brazilian meat giant JBS.
Evidence presented to the SEC details how JBS, the world’s largest meat processor with operations in over 20 countries, issued $3.2 billion in four separate debt issuances or “green bonds” in 2021, referring to them as Sustainability-Linked Bonds (SLBs) tied to its stated goal to cut its emissions and achieve “Net Zero by 2040.”
The heart of the complaint centers on the fact that JBS based the bond offerings on its commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 – but that its emissions have in fact increased in recent years and it excluded ‘Scope 3’ supply chain emissions that comprise upwards of 97% of its climate footprint. It also omitted key information from investors about the actual number of animals it slaughters each year, denying US investors vital information to make fully informed decisions about JBS’s net zero and climate-related claims as they decided whether to purchase these SLBs.
Mighty Earth’s CEO Glenn Hurowitz said:
“JBS seduced investors with sustainability pledges, but those pledges had practically zilch to do with the actual source of JBS’ supersized climate impact. Companies simply shouldn’t be able to ignore the environmental impact of 97% of their operations and then market themselves as green.”
“The fact that the meat company arguably responsible for more climate pollution and deforestation than any other in the world was able to raise $3.2 billion through green bonds is an indictment of the utter lack of safeguards in the world of ESG investing. JBS’ success in duping investors shows that SEC needs to step in right away to set clear rules about what does or doesn’t count as sustainable.”
“We need trillions of dollars in investment in decarbonization, but it shouldn’t be wasted on industrial meat companies that are driving deforestation and spewing pollution into the atmosphere.”
“The facts uncovered in today’s SEC filing should signal to investors that they can’t take company sustainability claims at face value. JBS’ materials make the company sound like Greta Thunberg even as their suppliers burned the Amazon and spewed enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Before JBS makes elaborate claims like these, they need to first stop the bulldozers in their supply chain and slash their methane pollution.”
The complaint cites the official Second Party Opinion on JBS’ Sustainability-Linked Securities that concluded that the bonds “were not material to the whole corporate value chain as the KPI does not include Scope 3 emission,” which are responsible for an estimated 97% of the company’s footprint.
Our complaint – the first against a Sustainability-Linked Bond – highlights that since 2017 JBS has concealed the true scale of its emissions footprint, by failing to disclose the number of animals it slaughters every year, which are the primary source of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These Scope 3 emissions relate to animals in its supply chain – from deforestation, methane, and land use change to rear cattle on the thousands of farms and feedlots, which directly and indirectly produce meat for JBS in Brazil, the United States and beyond.
Despite JBS’ claims, the complaint shows that JBS is heading in the opposite direction when it comes to reaching net zero by 2040. The complaint argues that JBS omitted material information in its bond offering and investor presentations about its Scope 3 emissions. The most recent published analysis shows that instead of JBS’ emissions footprint shrinking, it is estimated to have grown by between 17% and 56% between 2016 and 2021, to 288 million metric tons CO2 equivalent in 2021, and may be as high as 541 million metric tons CO2. For context, JBS’ estimated total emissions of 288 mmt CO2 in 2021 exceed the entire emissions of Spain.
Alex Wijeratna, Senior Director at Mighty Earth, said:
“This is greenwashing so severe that we hope the SEC investigates it as securities fraud. We’re urging the SEC to conduct a full investigation into these $3.2 billion of JBS green bonds, in order to protect investors from wrongdoers who mislead, conceal, and massively under-report their climate emissions.”
Kevin Galbraith, attorney for Mighty Earth and the whistleblower, said:
“JBS’ long history of corporate misconduct – resulting in billions of dollars in fines from several governmental agencies and yet no apparent modification of its behavior – make plain that the company needs more than a slap on the wrist. These facts require an energetic investigation of the material misrepresentations that we have alleged in the whistleblower complaint. JBS’ greenwashing achieved its desired effect: the company accessed U.S. capital markets to raise billions from unsuspecting investors, including asset managers who had signed on to a pledge to avoid issuers whose conduct fuels climate change. We are confident that when the SEC’s Climate and ESG Task Force carefully examines what has happened here, it will take appropriate action to hold JBS accountable and ensure that it lives up to its environmental promises.”
Indigenous activist and filmaker, Edivan Guajajara, who supported the SEC submission, said:
“For too long big business has held all the power, deforesting at will in the Amazon to rear cattle or grow soy, on land taken from Indigenous communities. The tide is turning and we’re seeing more organizations willing to call out bad practice and pursue legal challenges. We support this, as none of us can fight this alone.”
Mighty Earth calls for urgent action from UK retailers & government to end deforestation
Mighty Earth, in collaboration with Think Film Impact Productions, held a special film screening and panel event in London on 24 November. It brought together an audience of leading retailers, including Tesco, Waitrose, M&S and John Lewis, along with civil servants from BEIS (Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, DEFRA the UN, plus environmental NGOs including Friends of the Earth, Sustain and WWF. The aim of the event was to examine how best to prevent deforestation, linked to the global meat and soy industries, from entering UK supply chains and ending up on supermarket shelves.
The film screening was preceded by a panel discussion, which included special guest Indigenous leader from the Amazon, Benki Piyako, Will Schreiber of the Retail Soy Group and Maggie Charnley, Head of International Forests Unit at BEIS.
Speaking during the panel event, Benki Piyako offered a message of hope, saying the election of President Lula offered a new dawn for the Amazon, but said everyone has a role to play:
“We all have a collective responsibility to ensure the resources we are using, the products coming to the UK from the Amazon do not harm nature – and we must all understand the impacts of what we are consuming. Companies must stop taking from the forest and we all must ensure we protect the Amazon, for the sake of all of life on our planet.”
Will Schreiber of RSG (Retail Soy Group) said:
“We must use the power, both from retailers and through strong legislation, to hold agricultural companies to account and ensure deforestation is eliminated from our supply chains.”
Maggie Charnley, Head of the UK Government's International Forests Unit (BEIS-FCDO)
“The trader roadmap announcement at COP27 demonstrated collective action by the sector but needs to be implemented and strengthened if we are to halt and reverse the loss of forests and other ecosystems. Strong UK and EU due diligence legislation paired with efforts in Brazilian law must support consumer interests to ensure our supply chains work with local communities and do not drive forest loss.”
Gemma Hoskins, UK Climate Director at Mighty Earth said:
“Our hope is that by bringing together a wide-ranging collection of actors across the supply chain to see and to feel the impacts and the reality on the ground for those forests’ defenders on the front line of this crucial fight, organisations, Government, and business move our collective agenda forward through specific and urgent action. Suspending business with known forest destroyers is a positive step UK retailers can take immediately to stamp out deforestation from landing on our dinner plates.”
Carrefour is STILL smoking us out! And we have new evidence!
Mighty Earth launched a new report and campaign in September calling on the French retail giant to urgently clean up its supply chains and cut ties with industrial meat and soy traders driving deforestation.
In response to that, Carrefour said it had suspended beef supplies from two JBS slaughterhouses linked to deforestation on Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau land in the Amazon.
We’ve now found new evidence that deforestation-tainted meat is still being sold in Carrefour’s Atacadao brand shops in Brazil. Carrefour explains this as a “malfunction!”
Read our second and latest report on Carrefour here.
Climate Week NYC: Mighty Earth calls time on supermarkets linked to deforestation
NEW YORK (September 22, 2022) – Mighty Earth brought a peaceful and powerful protest to save our precious forests and the people and wildlife who live there, to the Forest Positive Coalition of Action meeting, taking place during New York Climate Week.
The coalition, part of the Consumer Goods Forum, is made up of many of the world’s biggest and most influential companies, with a combined market value running into trillions of dollars: Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Mondelez, Nestle, Carrefour and Tesco.
Carrying clocks and pushing shopping carts, the dancers demonstrated that time is running out for supermarkets and other consumer goods giants to clean up their supply chains.
The Amazon’s experiencing a record year for fires and urgent action is needed, now. The Forest Positive Coalition has just released its second annual report, pledging to improve transparency and introduce more regulation for all companies.
Our CEO and Founder of Mighty Glenn Hurowitz was on the streets of Manhattan with our activists and inside with industry leaders:
Watch Glenn’s report here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=445727674201657
Missing from the crunch talks yesterday was the co-chair of the Forest Positive Coalition, Alexandre Bompard who has promised “swift action” on deforestation and to “challenge suppliers, traders and farmers” to improve their practices:
Watch Mr Bompard promise action here:
CGF Forest Positive Coalition of Action: CEO Introduction
We know that meat from illegally deforested land is still ending up on Carrefour shelves: Land that rightfully belongs to the Indigenous Peoples who have lived there for thousands of years. As consumers we are dining on that deforestation, but it is not listed as an ingredient, because these big companies are not transparent about their suppliers and their illegal activities.
We would very much like to speak to Mr Bompard about his promises for “swift action” to find out how plans are progressing! Mr Bompard is one of the industry leaders who can stop deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Carrefour halts beef supplies from two JBS slaughterhouses linked to deforestation on Indigenous land in the Amazon
Link to report
Français: Carrefour Nous Enfume
English: Carrefour's Smokescreen
It comes as Mighty Earth launches a new report and campaign on Amazon Day calling on the French retail giant to urgently act to clean up its supply chains and cut ties with industrial meat and soy traders driving deforestation.
French supermarket giant Carrefour has suspended beef supplies from two JBS slaughterhouses in the Amazon and is investigating evidence of sales of deforestation-tainted beef found in its stores in Brazil. It follows an investigation from Mighty Earth, which found that two-thirds of meat products surveyed in Carrefour stores in Brazil were sourced from JBS and 12% were sourced from two slaughterhouses in Rondônia. According to a CCCA (Center for Climate Crime Analysis) report, those JBS facilities in Rondonia are connected to illegal cattle farms on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory in Rondônia state. 1
Mighty Earth surveyed 102 beef products found in six Carrefour stores in Brazil, including three stores in São Paulo, and found twelve beef products came from two JBS slaughterhouses in Rondônia state that are linked to illegal deforestation on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau land in the Amazon. Brazil-based JBS is the world’s largest meat processor has been repeatedly linked to widespread deforestation in the Amazon and other key biomes such as the Cerrado and the Pantanal.
The suspension of JBS slaughterhouses follows action in December by seven European supermarkets to suspend JBS or Brazilian beef in response to a previous Mighty Earth investigation with Reporter Brasil.
Responding to Mighty Earth’s new report a Carrefour spokesperson said:
“We take note of the report you sent us on Tuesday 30 August. It includes a lot of detailed information, particularly concerning more than a hundred products that Mighty has investigated. We are integrating these elements into our alert process in accordance with our vigilance plan and are launching an investigation into all the data transmitted.”
“As with every alert we receive, the cases you raise require careful consideration in accordance with the Group's alert process. We will take appropriate action based on the results and will get back to you with the decisions taken.”
“In parallel to this investigation process, we are already taking preventive measures by suspending all marketing of beef from the two JBS slaughterhouses in Rondônia, Pimenta Bueno and Vilhena, highlighted in your report.”
On Amazon Day, Mighty Earth is launching a new campaign in France – ‘Carrefour Nous Enfume’ – with advertising and grassroots events – along with a new report calling on the supermarket to show leadership and urgently address deforestation, climate and water pollution, and land-grabbing in its meat supply chains. It follows weeks of record-breaking fires by meat industry interests across the Amazon and other precious biomes, with more fires in August than in any month in five years.2 The Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, INPE, recorded a new record for August of 3,358 fires on Monday 22 August. 3
Boris Patentreger, Mighty Earth’s Senior Director, France, said:
“We’re glad Carrefour acted on our investigation when it comes to these two JBS slaughterhouses, but we must be clear that Carrefour beef is still linked to vast deforestation. Shuffling slaughterhouses doesn’t do a whole lot to protect the Amazon when JBS is still driving deforestation, land-grabbing, and climate pollution on a massive scale.
“The findings show those most affected by this illegal deforestation are the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous people whose ancestral lands are being destroyed and burned for cattle ranching to supply JBS slaughterhouses and to produce beef for Carrefour’s supermarket shelves.”
“If Carrefour is serious about selling its customers sustainable meat, it needs to drop JBS, period.”
Sébastien Mabile of Seattle Avocats, counsel for Mighty Earth said:
“The findings of the report provide material evidence of this link between JBS, Carrefour's main supplier in Brazil, and deforestation. Given the extreme seriousness of these risks, Carrefour should have been aware of them. The release of Mighty Earth’s report now obliges Carrefour to halt all activity with this company, as the vigilance must be applied to all risks and not just to some of JBS’ slaughterhouses.”
Mighty Earth’s new campaign challenges Carrefour to:
- Immediately cut ties with key corporations most responsible for deforestation and destruction of natural ecosystems, such as JBS, Bunge and Cargill.
- Carrefour has set a new target to reduce deforestation in its meat supply chains by“ 50% by 2026 and by 100% by 2030, but only in “critical areas.” This is not enough ambitious enough.
- Adopt and implement a clear “Zero Deforestation, Zero Conversion” policy that improves the transparency and traceability of its entire meat and soybean supply chains with immediate effect.
- Set clear policies to require suppliers to reduce their emissions of methane and other forms of climate pollution, and to make the transition to sustainable animal protein, using regenerative agricultural practices.
- Increase sales of plant-based proteins and meat alternatives as part of a broader effort to significantly reduce sales of animal protein, reaching at least 15% sales by 2030.
- Increase Carrefour's support for independent meat supply chain monitoring in Brazil.
In March, Carrefour’s competitor, French supermarket chain Groupe Casino was sued in the Court of Paris for links to deforestation-tainted beef supplied by JBS from farms on Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous land. It was a legal first by Mighty Earth and a coalition of Indigenous representatives and civil society groups campaigning to end deforestation and human rights abuses in global supply chains. According to evidence gathered by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) for the case, Groupe Casino regularly bought beef from the two slaughterhouses owned by JBS in Rondônia. 4
Ends
For more information or to arrange an interview contact:
Carole Mitchell, Senior Director of Communications
+44 7917 105000
Notes to editors:
1 CCCA (2022) (Centre for Climate Crime Analysis)
2 Number of Brazil Amazon fires hits five-year high in August, AP
3 Real time satellite monitoring of active fires by The Brazilian Space Agency, INPE
4 Amazonian groups sue French supermarket chain over deforestation, BBC
- “The Territory,” an award-winning new film, partially shot by the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau tells the story of the fight to save their forest home from further deforestation. Watch here
About Mighty Earth
Mighty Earth is a global advocacy organization working to defend a living planet. Our goal is to protect half of Earth for Nature and secure a climate that allows life to flourish. We are obsessed with impact and aspire to be the most effective environmental advocacy organization in the world. Our team has achieved transformative change by persuading leading industries to dramatically reduce deforestation and climate pollution throughout their global supply chains in palm oil, rubber, cocoa, and animal feed, while improving livelihoods for Indigenous and local communities across the tropics.
Complice des feux de forêts au Brésil, “Carrefour Nous Enfume !”
Description de la photo: De gauche à droite : activiste Gert-Peter Bruch Planète Amazone, Claude Gruffat, député européen Groupe Europe Écologie – Les Verts, Boris Patentreger, directeur France Migthy Earth, Michèle Rivasi, députée européenne Groupe des Verts/Alliance libre européenne et activiste d’Extinction Rébellion.
1ère avancée : Mighty Earth obtient de Carrefour l’arrêt de 12% de ses approvisionnements de bœuf auprès de JBS, acteur majeur de la déforestation en Amazonie.
Cette décision survient au moment où l’ONG internationale Mighty Earth lance la campagne #CarrefourNousEnfume appelant le géant français de la grande distribution à agir de toute urgence pour éliminer la déforestation et les atteintes aux droits humains de ses chaînes d'approvisionnement en cessant toute relation avec les négociants en viande et en soja aux pratiques dévastatrices.
De gauche à droite : activiste Gert-Peter Bruch Planète Amazone, Claude Gruffat, député européen Groupe Europe Écologie - Les Verts, Boris Patentreger, directeur France Migthy Earth, Michèle Rivasi, députée européenne Groupe des Verts/Alliance libre européenne et activiste d’Extinction Rébellion.
Le groupe Carrefour, leader de la grande distribution au Brésil, vient de suspendre ses livraisons de bœuf issu de deux abattoirs de JBS en Amazonie. Cette décision, en réaction au nouveau rapport de Mighty Earth, révèle que 2/3 des produits carnés inspectés dans les magasins Carrefour au Brésil sont fournis par JBS, et que certains d'entre eux proviennent d'élevages illégaux sur le territoire autochtone Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, dans l'État de Rondônia. L’enquête porte sur 102 produits de bœuf distribués dans 6 supermarchés Carrefour au Brésil, dont 3 situés à São Paulo. L’enquête a aussi découvert que 12 produits proviennent de deux abattoirs de JBS dans l'État de Rondônia. Ces abattoirs sont liés à la déforestation illégale des territoires des Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau en Amazonie selon le Centre d’analyse pour les crimes climatiques (CCCA). L'entreprise brésilienne JBS, le plus grand transformateur de viande au monde, a été associée à maintes reprises à des pratiques de déforestation à grande échelle en Amazonie et dans d'autres biomes clés tels que le Cerrado et le Pantanal.
Cette suspension des relations commerciales du groupe Carrefour avec les abattoirs JBS du Rondonia s'inscrit dans le prolongement des mesures prises en décembre dernier par 7 enseignes de supermarchés européens qui ont décidé de cesser de s'approvisionner en bœuf auprès de JBS ou en bœuf brésilien, à la suite d'une précédenteenquête menée par Mighty Earth en collaboration avec Reporter Brasil.
Boris Patentreger, directeur France de Mighty Earth, déclare :
« Soyons clairs : cesser de s’approvisionner auprès de 2 abattoirs de JBS cela représente pour Carrefour 12% de sa viande de bœuf au Brésil, c’est un premier pas, mais le chemin reste long. Le bœuf distribué par Carrefour est toujours lié à une déforestation massive. Changer d'abattoir ne suffira pas pour protéger l'Amazonie quand JBS continue d'encourager la déforestation, l'accaparement de terres et la pollution climatique à grande échelle. Les conclusions de l'enquête montrent que les personnes les plus touchées par cette déforestation illégale sont les Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, une population autochtone dont les terres ancestrales sont détruites et brûlées pour élever du bétail destiné aux abattoirs de JBS fournissant la viande de bœuf pour les rayons de Carrefour. »
La nouvelle campagne de Mighty Earth appelle Carrefour à :
- Rompre immédiatement tout lien avec les principales entreprises impliquées dans la déforestation et la destruction d’écosystèmes naturels, telles que JBS,Bunge et Cargill ;
- Interdire la déforestation maintenant, et non en 2035. À l'heure actuelle, Carrefour a aligné son objectif zéro déforestation sur celui de JBS, donnant ainsi à l'entreprise un permis de déforestation pour 13 années supplémentaires ;
- Adopter et mettre en œuvre immédiatement une politique claire « zéro déforestation, zéro conversion » qui améliore la transparence et la traçabilité de l'ensemble de ses chaînes d'approvisionnement en viande et en soja ;
- Définir des politiques claires pour exiger de la part de ses fournisseurs qu'ils réduisent leurs émissions de méthane et d'autres formes de pollution climatique, et qu'ils optent pour des élevages plus durables ;
- Augmenter les ventes de protéines végétales et d'alternatives à la viande dans le cadre d'un effort plus global visant à réduire fortement les ventes de viande pour atteindre au moins 15 % des ventes d'ici 2030 ;
- Renforcer le soutien de Carrefour en faveur d'un contrôle indépendant de la chaîne d'approvisionnement en viande au Brésil.
Contacts presse
Pascale Hayter
06 83 55 97 91
[email protected]
Marlyn Dufetrelle
06 70 13 16 91
[email protected]
Notes aux rédacteurs :
- Rapport CCCA sur la déforestation dans les territoires Uru Eu Wau Wau : https://climatecrimeanalysis.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/casino_case_-_english.pdf
- https://www.20minutes.fr/planete/3345215-20220902-feux-forets-bresil-pire-mois-aout-12-ans-incendies-amazonie
- Surveillance par satellite en temps réel des foyers d'incendie actifs par l'Agence spatiale brésilienne (INPE)
- The Territory, un nouveau film primé, tourné par le peuple autochtone Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, relate leur combat pour préserver leur forêt natale. Visionner ici
Photos : https://www.divergence-images.com/laurent-hazgui/reportage-happening-carrefournousenfume-LH1555/
Egalement sur Pixpalace
Copyright : Laurent Hazgui / Mighty Earth 2022
À propos de Mighty Earth :
Mighty Earth est une organisation mondiale de plaidoyer qui œuvre pour la défense d'une planète vivante. Notre objectif est de protéger la moitié de la Terre pour que la nature puisse s'y épanouir, et de garantir un climat propice à la vie. L'impact de notre travail est pour nous une priorité et nous aspirons à être l'organisation environnementale la plus efficace au monde. Notre équipe a fait bouger les lignes en persuadant les principaux secteurs à réduire considérablement la déforestation et la pollution climatique dans leurs chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales en huile de palme, en caoutchouc, en cacao et en aliments pour bétail, tout en améliorant les moyens de subsistance des communautés autochtones et locales des régions tropicales.
La carne y los lácteos de los supermercados siguen vinculados a la deforestación prohibida
COMUNICADO DE PRENSA Lunes, 11 de julio de 2022
Las principales cadenas de supermercados Carrefour, Aldi, Lidl, Tesco y Sainsbury's siguen arriesgándose a vender productos cárnicos y lácteos relacionados con empresas que impulsan una enorme deforestación en Brasil, pese a que hace apenas unos meses la asociación sectorial que engloba a muchas de estas empresas, el Grupo de Minoristas de la Soja (Retail Soy Group, RSG), publicó una hoja de ruta en la que se pedía de forma inequívoca a las empresas asociadas que dejaran de realizar dichas compras vinculadas con la deforestación.
El Grupo de Minoristas de la Soja pretende apoyar el desarrollo de un mercado en el que la soja sostenible sea la norma. Este grupo representa a los supermercados Ahold Delhaize, Aldi South, Aldi North, Co-op (Reino Unido), Co-op Switzerland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Migros, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco y Waitrose & Partners, y Woolworth's Group-Australia.
En respuesta al anuncio realizado por RSG en octubre de 2021 sobre la prohibición de las compras vinculadas a la deforestación, Mighty Earth llevó a cabo un análisis intensivo del cumplimiento por parte de las empresas de los pasos y compromisos clave que figuran en su propia hoja de ruta para la deforestación cero. El objetivo del análisis era proporcionar a los supermercados la información que necesitaban para cumplir con sus propios compromisos empresariales de actuar contra el cambio climático y acabar con la destrucción de los ecosistemas autóctonos.
El nuevo informe de Mighty Earth descubrió más de 27.000 hectáreas de deforestación reciente en plantaciones de soja en un solo ecosistema crítico -el Cerrado brasileño- sujeto a la prohibición de compra en base a dicho compromiso. Lo más importante es que la deforestación se produjo después de agosto de 2020, que es la fecha límite adoptada en la hoja de ruta de los supermercados. Nueve miembros del Grupo de Minoristas de la Soja -Ahold Delhaize, Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, M&S, Migros, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose y Woolworths- y otros minoristas como Carrefour adoptaron explícitamente políticas de no comprar soja, carne o productos lácteos vinculados a empresas relacionadas con la deforestación producida posteriormente a 2020.
Sin embargo, aunque los supermercados aceptaron las nuevas y alarmantes pruebas aportadas por Mighty Earth, hasta la fecha todos se han negado a cumplir sus propios compromisos alejando su negocio de las empresas de la industria cárnica vinculadas a la deforestación.
En la explicación de sus razones para negarse a actuar de forma coherente con la hoja de ruta en cuya elaboración había participado, un portavoz de Aldi Süd escribió a Mighty Earth para decir que, a pesar de las nuevas pruebas, "nuestro enfoque es comunicar a los comerciantes [de soja] la petición y las expectativas alineadas de muchos actores de la cadena de suministro y comprometernos con ellos sobre una base de confianza en lugar de excluirlos o avergonzarlos públicamente".
"Que Aldi afirme que confía en las mismas empresas que acaban de salir a la luz pública incumpliendo sus propios compromisos de la Hoja de Ruta es el colmo de la deshonestidad, la ingenuidad o ambas cosas", dijo Alex Wijeratna, director senior de Mighty Earth. "Basta de palabras huidizas. Estamos hablando de una situación que conlleva al ecocidio".
"La destrucción del ecosistema que se ha documentado en el Cerrado en relación con estos supermercados es sólo una pequeña parte de toda la destrucción de la que son responsables", dijo Wijeratna. "Sabemos que estos supermercados también tienen vínculos en la cadena de suministro con una amplia destrucción del ecosistema en Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay y las Grandes Llanuras de Estados Unidos también".
El Cerrado de Brasil es la sabana y la pradera arbolada más biodiversa del mundo y es el punto caliente mundial de la deforestación provocada por la producción de carne. La agricultura animal es el mayor impulsor de la deforestación, de la extinción de la vida silvestre y del desplazamiento de los pueblos indígenas, y causa más contaminación climática que todos los coches, camiones, barcos y aviones del mundo juntos.
"El Cerrado es el nuevo Amazonas en términos de deforestación desenfrenada vinculada a la industria cárnica. Supermercados como Tesco, Carrefour, Adli y Lidl deberían cumplir su propia hoja de ruta y abandonar inmediatamente su relación comercial con los conocidos destructores de los bosques", dijo Wijeratna.
El informe de Mighty Earth "¡Palabras, palabras!" (adjunto) descubrió que los cinco principales comerciantes de alimentos para animales, Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, LDC y ALZ Grãos, seguían comprando soja a los proveedores locales brasileños y a los megaconglomerados que habían talado y deforestado desde la fecha límite de agosto de 2020 al menos 27.000 hectáreas en diez fincas en el Cerrado. Se trata de un área mayor que la ciudad de Edimburgo en Escocia, o la mitad del tamaño de Chicago.
Basado en el análisis de imágenes satelitales, otros hallazgos clave del informe de Mighty Earth incluyen:
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Cada uno de los cinco principales comerciantes de soja tiene relaciones comerciales, bien directamente con las explotaciones agrícolas involucradas en la deforestación, bien con los grupos matriz (incluidos los megaconglomerados como BrasilAgro, SLC Agrícola y Condomínio Agrícola Estrondo).
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La magnitud de la destrucción es enorme. El caso más grave de deforestación identificado se produjo dentro del Condomínio Agrícola Estrondo en Bahía; la investigación descubrió que se desbrozaron más de 15.000 hectáreas después de la fecha límite de 2020. De ellas, más de 100 hectáreas fueron probablemente ilegales, en lo que debería haber sido la Reserva Legal protegida de la finca.
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Muchos otros casos fueron también significativos. La Fazenda Serra Grande de BrasilAgro, en Piauí, desbrozó más de 1.180 hectáreas de vegetación -el equivalente a 1.652 campos de fútbol- en un solo mes. La Fazenda Parnaíba de SLC Agrícola, en Maranhão, despejó 668 hectáreas - equivalentes a 935 campos de fútbol- de vegetación en seis meses.
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Deforestación en curso también se encontró en las fincas de los proveedores que aparecen en los informes Rapid Response de seguimiento de la deforestación publicados anteriormente por Mighty Earth, incluyendo SLC Agrícola, Estreito Agropecuária, Grupo Mizote y Grupo Tomazini. Los principales comerciantes de soja, Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, LDC y ALZ Grãos, siguen comprando a uno o varios de estos proveedores locales, a pesar de que Mighty Earth dio la alarma públicamente sobre la deforestación en sus explotaciones hace más de un año.
"Nos entusiasmamos cuando los supermercados por fin dieron un paso adelante y pasaron de pedir ineficazmente a la industria cárnica que detuviera la deforestación a finalmente comprometerse a hacer algo al respecto. Pero incluso ante la clara evidencia de la vasta destrucción de estos ecosistemas, parecen paralizados mientras Brasil arde. Dados los vínculos de su carne con la inmensa deforestación, los clientes deberían estar totalmente consternados por lo que estos supermercados están vendiendo", dijo Wijeratna. "Ya es hora de que los supermercados hagan algo de verdad, y no solo un lavado de imagen de su carne procedente de la deforestación".
La hoja de ruta del Grupo de Minoristas de la Soja fue muy clara sobre las medidas que deben tomar sus clientes: "Esta hoja de ruta presenta los principios y las prácticas que se necesitan urgentemente dentro del sector minorista para desempeñar su papel en la detención de la deforestación y la conversión, abordando así la crisis climática mundial y preservando los ecosistemas vitales de la Tierra, como el Amazonas, las Grandes Llanuras y el Cerrado", dijo en su comunicado de prensa de presentación de la Hoja de Ruta.
FIN DE COMUNICADO
Para más información, llamar:
- MilesGrant(PrensadeMightyEarth):[email protected],+1703-864-9599(m) - CarlosBravo(MightyEarthenEspaña):[email protected],+34626998241
Acerca de Mighty Earth
Mighty Earth (www.mightyearth.org) es una ONG internacional que trabaja para defender un planeta vivo. Nuestro equipo ha logrado cambios transformadores al persuadir a las principales industrias para que reduzcan drásticamente la deforestación y la contaminación climática a lo largo de sus cadenas de suministro mundiales de aceite de palma, caucho, cacao y piensos, al tiempo que a mejorar los medios de vida de las comunidades indígenas y locales en los trópicos y a movilizar miles de millones de dólares para energías renovables.
La viande et les produits laitiers des supermarchés toujours liés à la déforestation interdite
Analyse de la mise en œuvre du manifeste « pour un soja sans déforestation » par les supermarchés Européens
11 juillet 2022 – Un nouveau rapport de Mighty Earth qui sort aujourd’hui indique que les grandes chaînes de supermarchés comme Leclerc, Carrefour et Tesco risquent de vendre de la viande et des produits laitiers liés à des entreprises à l'origine d'une vaste déforestation au Brésil, et ce alors que ces entreprises ont signé avec le soutien du gouvernement un manifeste pour lutter contre la déforestation importée liée au soja. La déforestation est à un niveau record au Brésil et aucune entreprise ne met en place des actions à la hauteur des enjeux.
En réponse à la publication par la France en Novembre 2021 d’un nouvel outil d’évaluation des risques de déforestation liée aux importations de soja et à la signature d’un Manifeste "Pour un soja sans déforestation" signé par 9 distributeurs, 15 industriels et 1 fabricant d’alimentation animale, Mighty Earth a entrepris une analyse des pratiques des principaux importateurs de soja en France et en Europe en matière de lutte contre le changement climatique et de fin de la destruction des écosystèmes naturels.
Le nouveau rapport de Mighty Earth a révélé une déforestation récente de plus de 27 000 hectares sur des plantations de soja dans un seul écosystème critique - le Cerrado brésilien - soumis à l'interdiction d'achat mentionnée dans le manifeste. La déforestation s'est produite après janvier 2020. Pourtant selon les signataires du manifeste, il a été adopté des politiques visant à ne pas acheter de soja, de viande ou de produits laitiers liés à des entreprises impliquées dans la déforestation après 2020.
Avec d’autres ONGs, Mighty Earth a demandé aux signataires d’être conformes avec le manifeste "Pour soja sans déforestation" et d’exclure les entreprises non conformes avec les engagements. Comme cela a été fait dans le secteur de l’huile de palme et comme ils s’y sont eux même engagés, il a aussi demandé de publier l’origine du soja jusqu’au silo de stockage.
12 entreprises signataires sur 28 ont répondu au courrier. Elles évoquent la tenue d’une réunion de travail à venir à l’automne et leur implication pour travailler à la recherche de solutions avec les importateurs. Aucune d’entre elles n’a respecté ses propres engagements en se détournant des entreprises de l'industrie de la viande liées à la déforestation récentes.
Dans son explication pour justifier le refus de mettre en place ses propres engagements demandées en tant que signataire du manifeste soja, un porte-parole du groupe Leclerc a écrit à Mighty Earth pour dire que "Nous regrettons des délais de réponse aussi courts ainsi que le manque d’échange préalable pour traiter un sujet si complexe (…) Nous considérons qu’il vaut mieux instaurer une relation de confiance avec les importateurs pour les amener dans la bonne direction."
"Leclerc prétend faire confiance à des entreprises qui rompent les engagements du manifeste soja. C’est le summum de la malhonnêteté ou de la naïveté, ou des deux", a déclaré Boris Patentreger, directeur France de Mighty Earth. "En 2022, alors que la déforestation explose au Brésil, il faut agir et respecter ses propres engagements. Assez de mots ambigus et de perte de temps. Nous parlons d'écocide ici".
Le Cerrado Brésilien, qui est la savane et la prairie boisée la plus riche en biodiversité au monde, est le point chaud mondial de la déforestation due à la viande. L’élevage est le principal vecteur de déforestation, d'extinction de la faune sauvage et de déplacement des populations autochtones, et elle est à l'origine de plus d’émissions de GES que l'ensemble des voitures, camions, navires et avions du monde entier réunis.
"Le Cerrado est la nouvelle Amazonie en termes de déforestation rampante liée à l'industrie de la viande. Les supermarchés comme Leclerc, Carrefour et Tesco devraient être en conformité avec leur propre feuille de route et arrêter immédiatement de s’approvisionner auprès d’entreprises impliquées dans la destruction des forêts", a déclaré Boris Patentreger.
Le rapport de Mighty Earth intitulé "Vaines promesses !" a révélé que cinq grands négociants en aliments pour animaux - Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Louis Dreyfus et ALZ Grãos - continuaient d'acheter du soja à des fournisseurs brésiliens locaux et à des méga-conglomérats qui avaient défriché et déboisé au moins 27 000 hectares sur dix exploitations du Cerrado depuis la date butoir de janvier 2020. Il s'agit d'une superficie de trois fois Paris.
Sur la base de l'analyse de l'imagerie satellitaire, voici d'autres conclusions clés du rapport de Mighty Earth :
- Chacun des cinq principaux négociants en soja entretient des relations commerciales soit directement avec les exploitations engagées dans la déforestation, soit avec les maisons mères (notamment les méga-conglomérats tels que BrasilAgro, SLC Agrícola et Condomínio Agrícola Estrondo).
- L'ampleur de la destruction est considérable. Le cas le plus grave de déforestation identifié s'est produit au sein de Condomínio Agrícola Estrondo à Bahía ; les recherches ont révélé que plus de 15 000 hectares ont été défrichés après la date butoir de 2020.
- Une déforestation continue a également été constatée dans des exploitations appartenant à des fournisseurs figurant dans les rapports de suivi de la déforestation publiés précédemment par Mighty Earth (Rapid Response) notamment SLC Agrícola, Estreito Agropecuária, Grupo Mizote et Grupo Tomazini. Les grands négociants en soja Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Louis Dreyfus et ALZ Grãos continuent de s'approvisionner auprès d'un ou plusieurs de ces fournisseurs locaux, bien que Mighty Earth ait publiquement tiré la sonnette d'alarme sur la déforestation dans leurs exploitations il y a plus d'un an.
- L’enquête internationale révèle aussi que Bunge et Cargill sont respectivement les importateurs avec le risque de déforestation le plus important en 2021 avec respectivement 87 866 ha et 63701 ha.
Bunge particulièrement ciblé dans le rapport, est par ailleurs l’importateur principal de soja en France. Il s’avère par ailleurs, qu’il est celui ayant le plus augmenté ses capacités de stockage de silos dans les municipalités à risque de déforestation au Brésil, avec 110.000 tonnes entre 2019 et 2021. En même temps Bunge fournit de grands groupes de viande comme LDC, le géant français de la volaille qui fournit les marques distributeurs de volaille de la grande distribution en France.
"Nous étions enthousiastes lorsque les supermarchés se sont finalement engagés. Mais même face aux preuves évidentes d'une vaste déforestation de ces écosystèmes, ils semblent paralysés alors que le Brésil brûle. Étant donné les liens entre leur viande et la déforestation, les clients de ces enseignes devraient être totalement consternés", a déclaré M. Boris Patentreger. "Certaines actions émergent comme un premier cargo de soja non issu de la déforestation. Mais en 2022, alors que le Brésil brule, il faut en premier lieu couper tous les liens entre la déforestation, la viande et les produits laitiers."
À propos de Mighty Earth
Mighty Earth (www.mightyearth.org) est une organisation mondiale de défense d'une planète vivante. Notre objectif est de protéger la moitié de la Terre pour la nature et de garantir un climat propice à la vie. Nous sommes obsédés par l'impact et aspirons à être l'organisation de défense de l'environnement la plus efficace au monde. Notre équipe a réussi à transformer les choses en persuadant des industries de premier plan de réduire considérablement la déforestation et la pollution climatique tout au long de leurs chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales en huile de palme, caoutchouc, cacao et aliments pour animaux, tout en améliorant les moyens de subsistance des communautés autochtones et locales sous les tropiques et en mobilisant des milliards de dollars pour les énergies propres.
Contact en France : Boris Patentreger, [email protected] - 0776074419
European Supermarkets fail to act on deforestation-linked soy
Major European supermarkets Tesco, Carrefour, Asda, Lidl and Sainsbury’s have been urged to drop key global soy companies after an investigation by Mighty Earth found over 27,000 hectares of deforestation on soy farms in the threatened Cerrado savannah in Brazil.
Less well known than the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s tropical Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse savannah and wooded grassland and it has become a global hotspot for soy and cattle-driven deforestation. Most of the soy-driven deforestation observed was used to produce soy animal feed. Meat is the world’s largest driver of deforestation, wildlife extinction, and displacement of Indigenous peoples.
Eleven members of the Retail Soy Group – Ahold Delhaize, Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, M&S, Migros, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Woolworths – and other retailers such as Carrefour with similar corporate policies promising to ban deforestation-risk soy after a 2020 cut-off date have been urged to investigate Mighty Earth’s findings and to immediately drop key soy traders linked to this new deforestation in the Cerrado.
Based on satellite imagery analysis, Mighty Earth’s new report Promises, Promises! found five major global soy traders Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, LDC and ALZ Grãos continued to buy soy from Brazilian suppliers and conglomerates who had cleared and deforested at least 27,000 hectares on ten farms in the Cerrado since after August 2020 cut-off. This is an area larger than the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, or half the size of Chicago.
"Major supermarkets like Tesco, Carrefour, Asda and Lidl should urgently investigate and then ban any soy company with proven links to deforestation,” said Alex Wijeratna, Senior Director at Mighty Earth
Read the full report:
High Steaks: How focusing on agriculture can ensure the EU meets its methane-reduction goals
Mighty Earth joined some of Europe's leading working on climate change, environmental protection, and deforestation to launch a new report on how Europe could cut its dangerous methane levels by nearly 70% contributing to a big reduction in this particularly harmful gas. The report, "High Steaks: How focusing on agriculture can ensure the EU meets its methane-reduction goals" was led and authored by Changing Markets Foundation who we've been working with to push EU decision-makers to take action on methane.
The study investigates the potential of methane reductions across different EU sectors. It found that the biggest methane reductions – up to 36% – could come from tackling emissions in the agriculture sector.
The report demands the EU take three steps toward reducing methane emissions:
- Set methane emission-reduction targets
- Promote healthier diets with less and better meat and dairy
- Regulate EU companies to reduce their emissions
The coalition includes Changing Markets Foundation, Feedback EU, BirdLife International, WeMoveEurope, Compassion in World Farming, Deutsche Umwelt Hilfe, and Mighty Earth.
The Boys From Brazil: How JBS became the world’s largest meat company – and wrecked the climate to do it
The Boys From Brazil: How JBS became the world’s largest meat company – and wrecked the climate to do it
Mighty Earth has published a new report which highlights that the world’s largest meat company, JBS, has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by a staggering 51% over the last five years and is now responsible for greater emissions than Italy’s annual climate footprint.
The report The Boys From Brazil: How JBS became the world’s largest meat company – and wrecked the climate to do it highlights how the Brazilian-based meat giant has been driving the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems, while also causing supersized climate emissions. The scandal-hit company has been linked to high-level bribery, price-fixing, pollution and the exploitation of workers.
Key findings in the report:
- JBS has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by a staggering 51% over the last five years
- JBS’ emissions are now greater than Italy's annual climate footprint
- JBS slaughtered 46.7 million pigs, 26.8 million cattle and 4.9 billion chickens last year
- JBS’s emissions are now higher than the annual climate footprint of Spain and are almost as much as France and the United Kingdom.
The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report has singled out livestock-related methane emissions, recommending they be slashed by a third by 2030 in order to hold global temperature rise to 1.5ºC. This means the rapid expansion of JBS poses a direct threat to the climate.
Mighty Earth’s report highlights that JBS was responsible for an estimated 1.5 million hectares of deforestation in its indirect supply chains in Brazil since 2008 and warns that JBS has repeatedly broken its promises to stamp out deforestation.
“JBS is one of the world’s worst climate offenders and that’s why we’re urging its key customers like giant supermarkets Carrefour, Costco and Tesco to drop JBS urgently,” said Alex Wijeratna, Campaign Director at Mighty Earth.
European supermarkets turn their back on beef linked to Amazon deforestation
EU supermarkets turn their back on beef linked to Amazon deforestation
In response to surging deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and a new investigation documenting their ties to deforestation, major supermarket chains in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have announced they were dropping Brazilian beef altogether and/or beef products tied to JBS, the world’s largest beef company.
The move comes following a new investigation by Repórter Brasil in partnership with Mighty Earth that tracked deforestation-linked beef in the Brazilian Amazon and the Pantanal tropical wetlands to European retail store shelves, in the form of beef jerky, corned beef and fresh prime cuts. Mighty Earth alerted the retailers and companies to the deforestation links in advance of publication, resulting in this raft of new announcements.
UK: See the investigation of Sainbury's and corned beef
Belgium: See the investigation of Carrefour Belgium and Jack Link’s Beef Jerky
The Netherlands: See the investigation of Lidl Netherlands and ribeye beef steaks
The Netherlands: See the investigation of Ahold companies and beef products in Belgium, the Netherlands and US
Supermarkten in Europa stoppen met Braziliaans rundvlees door aan vleesgigant JBS gelinkte ontbossing
Supermarkten in Europa stoppen met Braziliaans rundvlees door aan vleesgigant JBS gelinkte ontbossing
BRUSSELS en WASHINGTON, DC – Als reactie op de groeiende ontbossing in Brazilië en een nieuw onderzoek dat de banden met ontbossing documenteert, hebben supermarktketens in België, Frankrijk, Nederland en het VK vandaag aangekondigd dat ze helemaal stoppen met Braziliaans rundvlees en/of rundvleesproducten die een relatie met JBS hebben, het grootste rundvleesbedrijf ter wereld.
De maatregel komt na een nieuw onderzoek door Repórter Brasil in samenwerking met Mighty Earth, waarin aan ontbossing gerelateerd rundvlees in de vorm van beef jerky, corned beef en vers vlees naar de schappen van Europese winkels werd gevolgd. Mighty Earth deelde de bevindingen direct met de bedrijven voor de geplande publicatie, resulterend in de aankondigingen van vandaag.
"Dit is een belangrijk keerpunt omdat meerdere grote supermarkten in Europa duidelijk "nee" tegen Braziliaans rundvlees zeggen omdat ze zich zorgen maken over ontbossing", zegt Nico Muzi, directeur van Mighty Earth Europa. "Dit is geen vage toezegging of een mooie aankondiging die het goed in een persbericht doet. Dit zijn concrete commerciële acties van een aantal van de grootste supermarkten uit Europa om geen rundvlees meer te kopen en verkopen van een bedrijf en een land die te veel beloften hebben gedaan en te weinig resultaten hebben laten zien."
“Kerst is al vroeg begonnen voor de bossen in het Amazonegebied, de Braziliaanse Cerrado-savanna's en de Pantanal-wetlands,” zegt Muzi.
De belangrijkste toezeggingen van de Europese supermarkten die vandaag zijn aangekondigd zijn:
- Ahold Delhaize - een Nederlands supermarktbedrijf met meer dan 7.000 locaties wereldwijd en een omzet van 75 miljard euro in 2020.
- Albert Heijn (onderdeel van Ahold Delhaize) heeft toegezegd om voor al haar winkels geen rundvlees uit Brazilië meer in te kopen. Het is de grootste supermarktketen van Nederland met meer dan 1.000 winkels en een marktaandeel van 35% in 2020.
- Delhaize (onderdeel van Ahold Delhaize) heeft toegezegd om alle producten van Jack Link’s uit haar schappen te verwijderen. Het bedrijf is een van de grootste supermarktketens van België.
- Lidl Nederland heeft toegezegd om per januari 2022 te stoppen met de verkoop van al het uit Zuid-Amerika afkomstige rundvlees. Het bedrijf is onderdeel van Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG, een Duitse supermarktketen met meer dan 11.000 winkels wereldwijd en een omzet van meer dan 75 miljard USD.
- Carrefour Belgium heeft toegezegd om te stoppen met de verkoop van Jack Link’s beef jerky en de grotere Carrefour Group heeft toegezegd om beter toezicht te houden in alle landen waar ze actief zijn. Carrefour Group is een Franse multinational met meer dan 15.500 winkels wereldwijd en een omzet van 78.6 miljard euro in 2020. Mighty Earth blijft druk op Carrefour uitoefenen om meer actie in al haar winkels te ondernemen.
- Auchan Frankrijk heeft toegezegd om beef jerky-producten die banden met JBS hebben uit haar winkelschappen te verwijderen. Auchan Frankrijk is onderdeel van Auchan Retail International S.A., Een Franse multinational met bijna 2.000 winkels wereldwijd en een omzet van 31.6 miljard euro in 2020.
- Sainsbury’s UK heeft toegezegd om haar eigen merk corned beef volledig uit Brazilië te verwijderen. Sainsbury’s is de op een na grootste supermarktketen uit het VK met een marktaandeel van 16% in de supermarktsector, meer dan 1.400 winkels en een omzet van 32 miljard pond in 2020/21.
- Princes Group heeft aangekondigd dat ze sinds november 2020 geen contracten voor corned beef meer met JBS hebben afgesloten en heeft toegezegd dat ze een nieuw inkoopbeleid voor Braziliaanse materialen hebben waarin onder andere absoluut geen ontbossing toegestaan is. Princes is een internationaal voedings- en drankbedrijf dat is gevestigd in Liverpool met een omzet van 1,5 miljard pond in 2020/21.
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Ondernemingsverklaringen over de toezeggingen van vandaag
ALBERT HEIJN
“Albert Heijn heeft besloten om te stoppen met de aankoop van rundvlees uit Brazilië voor al haar winkels,” zei een woordvoerder voor Albert Heijn. “Dit omvat zowel eigen merk als A-merken. Albert Heijn zal tijdens de komende maanden samenwerken met onze leveranciers om alle rundvleesproducten uit Brazilië uit te faseren of vervangen.”
LIDL NEDERLAND
"Het beschermen van biodiversiteit, inclusief het voorkomen van ontbossing, zijn centrale thema's binnen ons duurzaam inkoopbeleid", zei Renée Bijvoets, Sustainability Manager voor Lidl Nederland. "Gezien het risico van ontbossing dat in verband wordt gebracht met rundvlees van Zuid-Amerikaanse oorsprong hebben we samen met onze leverancier besloten om op zoek te gaan naar alternatieve bronnen. Het resultaat is dat we vanaf januari 2022 geen rundvlees van Zuid-Amerikaanse herkomst meer zullen verkopen als onderdeel van ons vaste assortiment.
CARREFOUR GROUP
“Na de ontvangen waarschuwing van Repórter Brasil en Mighty Earth zijn we direct een onderzoek gestart” zegt Geoffroy Gersdorff, Group Director of Merchandise Offer Food and Non-Food van Carrefour Group. “Als gevolg hiervan zal Carrefour stoppen met de verkoop van Jack Link’s beef jerky in Carrefour België en zullen we beter toezicht houden in alle landen waar we actief zijn. Deze commerciële beslissing is genomen binnen het comité voor inkoopregels voor de voedseltransitie van Carrefour. De groep is blij met de inzet van de NGO voor dit gevecht, omdat dialoog en waakzaamheid door iedereen ons in staat stelt om problemen te identificeren en voorgang te boeken.”
DELHAIZE BELGIË
“Delhaize zal ervoor zorgen dat alle Jack Link’s beef jerky uit al haar winkels zal worden verwijderd.” zei een woordvoerder voor Delhaize België.
SAINSBURY’S VK
“Het verband tussen de veehouderij en de vernietiging van ecosystemen zoals het Amazonegebied, de Cerrado en de Pentanal is een complexe zaak die we extreem serieus nemen. We hebben samen met onze leveranciers en de bredere bedrijfstak een aantal stappen genomen om dit proberen aan te pakken, maar er is niet voldoende voortgang geboekt. We streven er daarom naar om de inkoop voor ons eigen merk corned beef uit Brazilië te verwijderen om ervoor te zorgen dat er onafhankelijk kan worden gecontroleerd dat de oorsprong van het corned beef van Sainsbury vrij van ontbossing en conversie is.”
AUCHAN FRANKRIJK
“Auchan zet zich in tegen ontbossing en het kappen in Brazilië en met name in de Cerrado,” zei een woordvoerder van Auchan Frankrijk. “Om dit te ondersteunen, werkt Auchan nauw samen met de Earthworm Foundation, die winkeliers ondersteunt bij de implementatie van een verantwoordelijk inkoopbeleid. Het bedrijf heeft een jaar geleden ook het manifest tegen ontbossing voor sojabonen ondertekend. Momenteel onderzoekt onze kwaliteitsdienst uw informatie. Het product wordt door veel winkeliers en e-bedrijven in Frankrijk verkocht. Auchan kan niet worden aangewezen als een specifieke verkoper van dit product. Om eventuele misverstanden te voorkomen en om aan onze toezeggingen te voldoen, besluit Auchan om het product uit te schappen te halen.”
PRINCES GROUP
“Princes heeft sinds november 2020 geen contracten voor corned beef meer met JBS afgesloten. Het corned beef van het Princes-merk dat van JBS is betrokken en is geïdentificeerd door Mighty Earth in de winkelschappen in het VK en Nederland, zijn resten die zijn overgebleven uit het laatste contract.” zei een woordvoerder voor de Princes Group. “Princes neemt het probleem van ontbossing erg serieus en is continu samen met leveranciers bezig om het beheer van de toeleveringsketen te verbeteren, risico's te beperken en voor meer transparantie te zorgen. We hebben onze toeleveringsketen voor corned beef onderzocht en ontwikkelen een nieuw inkoopbeleid voor Braziliaans materiaal waarbij met meerdere factoren rekening wordt gehouden, waaronder traceerbaarheid, risico's, kosten, kwaliteit, feedback van klanten, het beheer van indirecte leveranciers en een toezegging voor nul komma nul ontbossing."
Check out Mighty Earth’s briefings on Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, Lidl Netherlands and Sainsbury’s.
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CONTACT:
Joel Finkelstein
202.285.0113 | [email protected]
Des supermarchés européens cessent de s'approvisionner en bœuf brésilien en raison de l’implication du géant de la viande JBS dans des pratiques de déforestation
Des supermarchés européens cessent de s'approvisionner en bœuf brésilien en raison de l’implication du géant de la viande JBS dans des pratiques de déforestation.
BRUXELLES et WASHINGTON, DC — Confrontées à la déforestation galopante au Brésil et en réponse à une nouvelle enquête documentant leurs liens avec la déforestation, des chaînes de supermarchés en Belgique, en France, aux Pays-Bas et au Royaume-Uni ont annoncé aujourd’hui qu’elles abandonnaient complètement leur approvisionnement en bœuf brésilien et/ou en produits à base de bœuf liés à JBS, la plus grande entreprise de viande bovine au monde.
Ces décisions font suite à une nouvelle enquête menée par Repórter Brasil en partenariat avec Mighty Earth, qui a permis de retracer le parcours de viande de bœuf liée à la déforestation jusque dans les rayonnages de grandes surfaces européennes, sous la forme de bœuf séché, de corned-beef ou de viande fraîche. Le partage par Mighty Earth des résultats de l’enquête, en amont de sa publication, avec les entreprises directement concernées, ont donné lieu aux déclarations d’aujourd’hui.
« C’est un moment charnière, car plusieurs grandes chaînes de supermarchés en Europe ont catégoriquement dit “non” au bœuf brésilien en raison des problèmes de déforestation », a déclaré Nico Muzi, directeur de Mighty Earth Europe. « Il ne s’agit pas de vagues engagements ou de déclarations pour faire bonne impression dans un communiqué de presse. Ce sont des mesures commerciales concrètes prises par certains des plus grands supermarchés d’Europe pour cesser d’acheter et de vendre de la viande de bœuf provenant d’une entreprise et d’un pays qui ont beaucoup promis et qui ont obtenu si peu de résultats. »
« C’est Noël avant l’heure pour les forêts d’Amazonie, les savanes du Cerrado brésilien et les zones humides du Pantanal », a ajouté Nico Muzi.
Les principaux engagements communiqués aujourd’hui par les supermarchés européens sont les suivants :
- Ahold Delhaize—une entreprise néerlandaise de grande distribution comptant plus de 7 000 magasins dans le monde et ayant réalisé un chiffre d’affaires de 75 milliards d’euros en 2020.
- Albert Heijn (qui est rattaché à Ahold Delhaize) s’est engagé à ne plus s’approvisionner en bœuf brésilien pour l’ensemble de ses magasins. Avec plus de 1 000 points de vente et une part de marché de 35 % en 2020, il s’agit de la plus grande chaîne de supermarchés aux Pays-Bas.
- Delhaize (qui est rattaché à Ahold Delhaize) s’est engagé à retirer tous les produits Jack Link's de ses rayons. Cette société est l’une des plus grandes chaînes de supermarchés en Belgique.
- Lidl Pays-Bas s’est engagé à ne plus vendre de viande de bœuf d’origine sud-américaine à partir de janvier 2022. L’entreprise est rattachée à Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG, une chaîne de grande distribution allemande qui compte plus de 11 000 points de vente dans le monde et réalise un chiffre d’affaires de plus de 75 milliards de dollars.
- Carrefour Belgique s’est engagé à ne plus vendre de bœuf séché Jack Link’s, et le groupe Carrefour dans son ensemble s’est engagé à renforcer sa surveillance dans tous les pays où il opère. Le groupe Carrefour est une multinationale française qui compte 15 500 magasins dans le monde et dont le chiffre d’affaires s’est élevé à 79 milliards d’euros en 2020. Mighty Earth continue de faire pression sur Carrefour pour que cette mesure soit appliquée à l’ensemble de ses magasins.
- Auchan France s’est engagé à retirer des rayons de ses magasins les produits de bœuf séché liés à JBS. Auchan France est rattaché à Auchan Retail International S.A., une multinationale française qui compte 2 000 points de vente dans le monde et a réalisé un chiffre d’affaires de 32 milliards d’euros en 2020.
- Sainsbury’s au Royaume-Uni s’est engagé à cesser la production du corned-beef vendu sous sa propre marque au Brésil. Sainsbury’s est la deuxième plus grande chaîne britannique de supermarchés, occupant une part de marché de 16 %. Elle compte plus de 1 400 points de vente et a réalisé un chiffre d’affaires de 32 milliards de livres sterling en 2020/21.
- Le groupe Princes au Royaume-Uni a annoncé qu’il n’avait pas passé de contrat pour du corned-beef auprès de JBS depuis novembre 2020 et s’est engagé à adopter une nouvelle politique d’approvisionnement zéro déforestation pour les matières premières provenant du Brésil. Princes est une multinationale du secteur alimentaire et des boissons basée à Liverpool. En 2020/21, son chiffre d’affaires s’élevait à 1,5 milliard de livres sterling.
L’enquête menée par Repórter Brasil en partenariat avec Mighty Earth a permis de mettre en lumière de multiples exemples de « blanchiment de bétail » : les abattoirs JBS situés dans des zones à faible déforestation comme l’État de São Paulo transforment de la viande de bœuf provenant de bovins élevés et nourris dans des fermes officiellement sanctionnées — et frappées d’embargo — pour déforestation illégale de la forêt amazonienne, ou liées à la destruction de la savane boisée du Cerrado et des zones humides tropicales du Pantanal.
Avec un chiffre d’affaires annuel de 50 milliards de dollars, JBS est le premier producteur mondial de viande de bœuf. Rien qu’au Brésil, il abat près de 35 000 bovins par jour. En 2017, il a été estimé qu’environ un tiers des exportations bovines de JBS au Brésil provenait de l’Amazonie.
L’an dernier, l’Amazonie brésilienne a atteint son niveau record de déforestation depuis 15 ans. Les scientifiques estiment que les deux tiers des terres défrichées en Amazonie et dans le Cerrado ont été convertis en pâturages pour le bétail.
« L’enquête montre que JBS continue de vendre de la viande de bœuf liée à la déforestation, alors qu’il existe en Amérique latine environ 650 millions d’hectares de terres où une production agricole sans déforestation est possible », a poursuivi Nico Muzi. « La bonne nouvelle, c’est que l’Europe ne l’achète plus. Ces mesures commerciales, ainsi que la nouvelle législation européenne destinée à lutter contre la déforestation importée, montrent que l’étau se resserre sur les destructeurs de forêts. »
« En fait, à en juger par les engagements pris aujourd’hui, il semble que les politiques irresponsables de JBS incitent les principaux supermarchés et détaillants à se détourner non seulement de cette entreprise, mais aussi du bœuf brésilien et même sud-américain en général », a expliqué Nico Muzi. « Si j’étais à la tête d’une autre entreprise de viande bovine de cette région du monde, j’exhorterais JBS à cesser de faire de toute cette zone un paria mondial en raison des problèmes de déforestation. Il y a certainement de nombreuses entreprises en Amérique du Sud qui se comportent bien mieux. »
En avril dernier, Mighty Earth a publié sa dernière analyse des données relatives à la déforestation, et a constaté que JBS était l’entreprise de viande la moins performante. Au cours des deux dernières années, elle a été liée au défrichement de 100 000 hectares. Près de 75 % de ces défrichements ont eu lieu dans des aires protégées, ce qui les rend potentiellement illégaux au regard de la législation brésilienne.
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Déclarations des entreprises sur leurs présents engagements
ALBERT HEIJN
« Albert Heijn a décidé de ne plus s’approvisionner en viande de bœuf du Brésil pour l’ensemble de ses magasins », a déclaré un porte-parole d’Albert Heijn. « Cette décision concerne aussi bien les produits de marque de distributeur que les autres marques. Albert Heijn travaillera avec ses fournisseurs dans les mois à venir pour éliminer progressivement ou remplacer tous les produits à base de bœuf d’origine brésilienne. »
LIDL PAYS-BAS
« La protection de la biodiversité et la lutte contre la déforestation sont au cœur de notre politique d’achat durable », a déclaré Renée Bijvoets, Sustainability Manager pour Lidl, Pays-Bas. « Compte tenu du risque de déforestation lié à la viande de bœuf d’origine sud-américaine, nous avons décidé avec notre fournisseur, de chercher une autre source d’approvisionnement. C’est pourquoi, à partir de janvier 2022, nous ne vendrons plus de viande de bœuf d’origine sud-américaine dans notre assortiment permanent. »
GROUPE CARREFOUR
« Après avoir été alertés par Repórter Brasil et Mighty Earth, nous avons immédiatement procédé à une enquête », a déclaré Geoffroy Gersdorff, Group Director of Merchandise Offer Food and Non-Food du groupe Carrefour. « Par conséquent, Carrefour cessera de vendre du bœuf séché Jack Link’s dans ses magasins Carrefour en Belgique et renforcera sa surveillance dans tous les pays où le groupe opère. Cette décision commerciale a été prise au sein du Comité des règles d’achat de Carrefour pour la transition alimentaire. Le Groupe salue l’engagement des ONG dans cette lutte, car le dialogue et la vigilance de tous permettent d’identifier les problèmes et de progresser. »
DELHAIZE BELGIQUE
« Delhaize veillera à ce que tout le bœuf séché Jack Link’s soit retiré de l’ensemble de ses magasins », a déclaré un porte-parole de Delhaize Belgique.
SAINSBURY'S ROYAUME-UNI
« Le lien entre l’élevage de bétail et la destruction d’écosystèmes comme l’Amazonie, le Cerrado et le Pantanal est un problème complexe, que nous prenons très au sérieux. Avec nos fournisseurs et l’ensemble du secteur, nous avons pris une série de mesures pour résoudre ce problème, mais les progrès sont insuffisants. Nous nous engageons donc à ne plus nous approvisionner au Brésil pour le corned-beef vendu sous notre propre marque, ceci afin de s’assurer que l’origine du corned-beef Sainsbury’s puisse être sans déforestation ni conversion d’écosystèmes et vérifiée de manière indépendante. »
AUCHAN FRANCE
« Auchan se mobilise contre la déforestation et le défrichement des écosystèmes au Brésil et notamment dans le Cerrado », a déclaré un porte-parole d’Auchan France. « Afin de soutenir cet effort, Auchan travaille en étroite collaboration avec la Fondation Earthworm qui aide les détaillants à mettre en œuvre une politique d’approvisionnement responsable. En outre, l’entreprise a signé l’an dernier le manifeste contre la déforestation liée au soja. Actuellement, notre service qualité enquête sur les informations que vous nous avez transmises. Ce produit est commercialisé par un grand nombre de détaillants et de sites de e-commerce en France. Aussi, Auchan ne saurait être identifié comme un vendeur spécifique de ce produit. Afin d’éviter tout malentendu et conformément à ses engagements, Auchan a donc décidé de retirer le produit de ses rayons. »
GROUPE PRINCES
« Princes n’a pas passé de contrat pour le corned-beef de JBS depuis novembre 2020 ; le corned-beef provenant de JBS vendu sous la marque Princes et repéré par Mighty Earth dans ses rayonnages au Royaume-Uni et aux Pays-Bas correspond au stock résiduel de ce dernier contrat », a déclaré un porte-parole du Groupe Princes. « Princes prend le problème de la déforestation très au sérieux et s’engage constamment auprès de ses fournisseurs pour améliorer la gestion de sa chaîne d’approvisionnement, en atténuer les risques et renforcer sa transparence. Nous avons réexaminé notre chaîne d’approvisionnement en corned-beef et nous sommes en train d’élaborer une nouvelle politique d’approvisionnement en matières premières provenant du Brésil. Cette politique tient compte d’un large éventail de facteurs, dont la traçabilité, le risque, le coût, la qualité, le retour des clients, la gestion des fournisseurs indirects et un engagement zéro déforestation. »
Check out Mighty Earth’s briefings on Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, Lidl Netherlands and Sainsbury’s
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CONTACT :
Joel Finkelstein
+1 202.285.0113 | [email protected]
Supermarkets Across Europe Drop Brazilian Beef Over Deforestation Linked to Meat Giant JBS
Supermarkets Across Europe Drop Brazilian Beef Over Deforestation Linked to Meat Giant JBS
BRUSSELS and WASHINGTON, DC – In response to surging deforestation in Brazil and a new investigation documenting their ties to deforestation, supermarket chains in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK today announced they were dropping Brazilian beef altogether and/or beef products tied to JBS, the world’s largest beef company.
The move comes following a new investigation by Repórter Brasil in partnership with Mighty Earth that tracked deforestation-linked beef to European retail store shelves, in the form of beef jerky, corned beef and fresh prime cuts. Mighty Earth shared the findings directly with the companies in advance of planned publication, resulting in today’s announcements.
“This is a watershed moment because several huge supermarkets across Europe are saying an emphatic ‘No!’ to Brazilian beef over deforestation concerns,” said Mighty Earth Europe Director Nico Muzi. “This is not a vague commitment or a nice announcement that looks good in a press release. These are a series of concrete commercial actions taken by some of the biggest supermarkets in Europe to stop buying and selling beef from a company and a country that have made too many promises and have delivered too few results.”
“Christmas has come early for the forests in the Amazon, the Brazilian Cerrado savannahs and the Pantanal wetlands,” said Muzi.
The key commitments from Europe-based supermarkets announced today are:
- Ahold Delhaize - a Dutch food retail company with over 7,000 locations worldwide and revenue of €75 billion in 2020.
- Albert Heijn (part of Ahold Delhaize) committed to stop sourcing beef from Brazil for all of its stores. It is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, with over 1,000 locations and a market share of 35% in 2020.
- Delhaize (part of Ahold Delhaize) committed to removing all Jack Link’s products from its shelves. The company is one of the largest supermarket chains in Belgium.
- Lidl Netherlands committed to stop selling all beef with South American origin as of January 2022. The company is part of Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG, a German retailer chain with over 11,000 locations worldwide and revenue of over USD$75 billion.
- Carrefour Belgium committed to stop selling Jack Link’s Beef Jerky in Belgium, and the larger Carrefour Group committed to increasing surveillance in all operating countries. Carrefour Group is a French multinational with 15,500 stores worldwide and revenue of €79 billion in 2020. Mighty Earth is continuing to press Carrefour for broader action across all its stores.
- Auchan France committed to removing beef jerky products tied to JBS from its store shelves. Auchan France is part of Auchan Retail International S.A., a French multinational with almost 2,000 locations worldwide and revenue of €32 billion in 2020.
- Sainsbury’s UK committed to moving its own brand corned beef away from Brazil entirely. Sainsbury’s is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the UK, with a 16% share of the supermarket sector, over 1,400 locations and £32 billion in sales in 2020/21.
- Princes Group announced it has not placed a contract for corned beef from JBS since November 2020 and committed to a new sourcing policy for Brazilian material that includes zero deforestation. Princes is an international food and drink company based in Liverpool in the UK with £1.5 billion in revenue in 2020/21.
The research by Repórter Brasil in partnership with Mighty Earth found multiple examples of “cattle laundering” – beef processed by JBS at its slaughterhouses in low-deforestation areas such as São Paulo, but sourced from cattle raised and fed on farms officially sanctioned – and embargoed – for illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, or tied to destruction of the Cerrado woody savannah and the Pantanal tropical wetlands.
With annual revenues of $50 billion, JBS is the world’s largest producer of beef – slaughtering almost 35,000 cattle a day in Brazil alone. In 2017, about a third of JBS’s beef exports from Brazil are assessed to have come from the Amazon.
In the past year, the Brazilian Amazon has seen the worst deforestation levels in 15 years. Scientists estimate two-thirds of cleared land in the Amazon and the Cerrado has been converted to cattle pasture.
“The new research shows JBS continues to sell beef linked to deforestation, even though there are around 650 million hectares of land in Latin America where deforestation-free agricultural production is possible,” said Muzi. “The big news is that Europe is not buying it now. These commercial actions as well as new EU legislation to stamp out imported deforestation, show that the grip is tightening on forest destroyers.”
“In fact, based on today’s commitments, it looks like JBS’s irresponsible practices are causing major supermarkets and retailers to turn away not just from this one company, but from Brazil-sourced and even South American-sourced beef in general,” said Muzi. “If I was another beef company from that part of the world, I would urge JBS to stop making their entire region a deforestation-linked global pariah. Certainly, there are many companies in South America that do better.”
This past April, Mighty Earth released its newest analysis of deforestation data, which found that JBS was the worst-performing meatpacker. It has been linked to 100,000 hectares of clearance the past two years. Some 75 percent of this clearance occurred in protected areas, making it potentially illegal under Brazilian law.
Corporate Statements on Today’s Commitments
ALBERT HEIJN
“Albert Heijn has decided to stop sourcing beef from Brazil for all of its stores,” said a spokesperson for Albert Heijn. “This includes private label as well as branded products. Albert Heijn will be working with our suppliers in the coming months to phase out or replace all beef products of Brazilian origin.”
LIDL NETHERLANDS
“Protecting biodiversity, including preventing deforestation, are central themes within our sustainable purchasing policy,” said Renée Bijvoets, Sustainability Manager for for Lidl Netherlands. “Given the risk of deforestation linked to beef with South-American origin, we have decided together with our supplier to look for alternative sourcing. The result is that from January 2022 onwards we will not sell beef with South-American origin in our fixed assortment.”
CARREFOUR GROUP
“Following the alert received by Repórter Brasil and Mighty Earth, we conducted an immediate investigation,” said Geoffroy Gersdorff, Group Director of Merchandise Offer Food and Non-Food of Carrefour Group. “As a consequence, Carrefour will stop selling Jack Link’s beef jerky in Carrefour Belgium and will increase its surveillance in all its operating countries. This commercial decision was taken within Carrefour’s Committee on purchasing rules for the food transition. The Group salutes the NGO's commitment to this fight, as dialogue and vigilance on the part of everyone allows us to identify problems and make progress.”
DELHAIZE BELGIUM
“Delhaize will ensure that all Jack Link’s beef jerky will be removed from all of their stores.,” said a spokesperson for Ahold Delhaize.
SAINSBURY’S UK
“The link between cattle farming and the destruction of ecosystems like the Amazon, the Cerrado, and the Pantanal is a complex issue, which we take extremely seriously. We have taken a range of steps together with our suppliers and the wider industry to try to address this, but not enough progress has been made. We are therefore committed to move our own brand corned beef sourcing away from Brazil to ensure Sainsbury’s corned beef product can be independently verified deforestation and conversion free in origin.”
AUCHAN FRANCE
“Auchan is engaged against deforestation and land clearance in Brazil and particularly in the Cerrado,” said a spokesperson for Auchan France. “In order to support this engagement Auchan works closely with Earthworm Foundation which assists retailers in the implementation of responsible procurement policy. Also, the company signed the manifesto against deforestation soybeans one year ago. Currently our quality service investigates on your information. The product is openly sold by a lot of retailers and e-business in France. Auchan couldn't be pointed as a specific seller of this product. To prevent any misunderstanding and complying with our commitments, Auchan decides to withdrawal out of shelves the product.”
PRINCES GROUP
“Princes has not placed a contract for corned beef from JBS since November 2020; the Princes branded corned beef sourced from JBS and identified by Mighty Earth on shelves in the UK and Netherlands will be residual sales from this last contract.
Princes takes the issue of deforestation very seriously and continually engages with suppliers to improve supply chain management, mitigate risks and enhance transparency. We have been reviewing our corned beef supply chain and are developing a new sourcing policy for Brazilian material taking into account a wide range of factors including traceability, risk, cost, quality, customer feedback, the management of indirect suppliers and a commitment to zero deforestation”
We commenced this review of Brazilian beef sourcing in mid-2021 and our updated policy will be publicly available on our website in 2022 once we have formally adopted it and communicated to suppliers. Princes does not comment on commercial relationships with customers or suppliers. Our updated sourcing policy will be discussed with Brazilian corned beef suppliers but we will not make a public comment on commercial trading relationships.”
Check out Mighty Earth’s briefings on Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, Lidl Netherlands and Sainsbury’s here.
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CONTACT:
Joel Finkelstein
202.285.0113 | [email protected]
BREAKTHROUGH: Supermarkets Pledge to Cease Purchases Tied to Deforestation
Major Breakthrough in Meat Sustainability as Supermarkets Pledge to Cease Purchases Tied to Deforestation
As the world’s eyes look to Glasgow for climate action, huge change may be coming right in the meat aisle. Leading British and European supermarket chains representing more than 50,000 supermarkets around the world earlier this month sent a clear and unprecedented message to the meat companies responsible for enormous deforestation: change the way you do business, or you’re cut off.
The companies pledged not to purchase meat or dairy raised on soy animal feed sold by companies connected to deforestation that occurred after August, 2020. Europe imports typically imports more than 30 million metric tons of soybeans and soymeal every year, primarily for animal feed. This soy has caused more deforestation than any other commodity imported into the EU and UK from 2005-2017.
The supermarket chains that are part of the commitment are members of the Retail Soy Group - Aldi South, Aldi Nord, Ahold Delhaize, Coop, ASDA, Waitrose, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Migros, and Woolworth’s. These chains also are looking at ways to reduce consumption of meat altogether by increasing sales of plant-based and other sustainable proteins.
Now the question becomes whether this coalition of some of the world’s largest retailers will actually implement this commitment, or try to pull a bait and switch on their customers.
What Happened
On October 5th, the Retail Soy Group laid out a new industry road map to stop industrial deforestation driven by growing soy for animal feed. The Group represents major commercial chains like Ahold Delhaize, Aldi South, Aldi North, Asda, Co-op (UK and Switzerland), Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Migros, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose & Partners – which taken together operate nearly 50,000 supermarkets, provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of employees, and bring in revenue worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
This commitment is the first of its kind at this scale, and could be a huge deal for forests and for the planet. That’s because enormous swaths of land in Latin America are destroyed to grow the soybeans used to feed chickens, pigs and cows.
70 percent of this destruction is concentrated in just one critical biome – the Cerrado in Brazil – which holds some 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity and some 13.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide in its immense root system. Half of the Cerrado – an area the size of France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands combined – has already been destroyed.
The Commitment Say the Right Things:
Right now the roadmap is just words on paper, but they’re the right words. Specifically, it says that:
- Retailers will cut-off agribusiness traders from lucrative markets within 14 months if they continue to buy animal feed from deforesters. Until now, traders like Cargill and Bunge have refused to agree to dicscontinue traders engaged in deforestation – but 50,000 supermarkets speak loudly.
- Retailers will impose a cut-off date of August 2020 after which they will not accept embedded soy from either legal or illegal conversation of native ecosystems. And, they will cascade these requirements to their direct and indirect suppliers while imposing clauses in supplier contracts.
- Retailers will apply these stipulations at the group level, which means suppliers won’t be able to sell ‘clean supply’ in one part of their supply chain while continuing to support deforestation in another.
- Retailers will create strategies that acknowledge reducing dependence on soy means finding pathways to alternative proteins, meat reduction and non-soy animal feed.
- Critically, the road map finally turns its back on achieving deforestation-free supply chains through certification, credits or offsets– no deforestation means no deforestation.
But Does it Matter?
If the commitments are actually implemented, and if they’re more than just words on paper. We think three tests will tell the tale:
- First: Will supermarket companies embed these principles and stipulations in supplier contracts? Up to now, asking nicely has proven futile – last year, over 160 retailers wrote a letter to large traders in Brazil asking them to accept the principle of a cut-off date and transparency, but the traders defied them. Instead, we need commercial action – backed up by robust monitoring and evaluation – to actually force change by rewarding clean suppliers at a group level and sanctioning others until they clean up, too. These kind of efforts have been so successful that deforestation for palm oil has been reduced more than 90% in Southeast Asia.
- Second: How seriously will supermarket companies handle non-compliance? The roadmap acknowledges the need for commercial penalties, hut also stipulates that buyers should engage and support the supplier to come up with a time-bound plan to address the problem. This sounds solutions-oriented, but in fact our experience shows that companies can become trapped in an endless cycle of engagement over non-compliance that doesn’t bring real change. The Retail Soy Group members need to be crystal clear that non-compliance with the cut-off date, transparency and group-level responsibility principles will result in commercial consequences – such as suspension of contracts or dropping of volumes. This too is easier if these stipulations are written right into the contracts.
- Third: Will supermarket companies get serious about alternative proteins? Less meat consumption reduces demand for industrial animal feed and therefore reduces pressure on land. Any genuine strategy from retailers which aims to end deforestation must include offering consumers better choices. That can include giving more shelf space to vegetables, fruit and plant proteins and setting meat and dairy reduction targets, and increasing the share of plant-based food in the average shopping basket.
Mighty Earth will be watching closely and applying these three tests as the Retail Soy Group moves forward with its roadmap. If taken seriously, this could mark a transformative moment for global agribusiness – and global forests.
Read our letter to the European Commission: EU anti-deforestation regulation would largely fail to address deforestation in Brazil
Mighty Earth, together with our friends and partners at Canopeé, Reporter Brasil, Earthsight, Rainforest Foundation Norway, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and Fern have written to the European Commission demanding changes to the proposed anti-deforestation supply chain regulation. It currently has big loopholes that would allow deforested cattle and beef products to still enter the European market.
Leaked drafts of the Commission’s regulatory proposal indicate that the EU law will fail to address cattle-driven deforestation by leaving out leather and processed beef - the strongest links between European consumption and deforestation in Brazil. Europe imports as much processed beef as fresh beef. In addition, savannahs like the Brazilian Cerrado are also out of the scope of the regulation, even if all the most deforestation associated with the soy imported into the EU comes from those ecosystems. Soy to feed chickens, pigs and cows has caused more deforestation than any other commodity imported into the EU between 2005 and 2017, even more than palm oil. Around 70% of this destruction was concentrated in one critical biome, Brazil’s Cerrado.
"Nico Muzi, Europe Director of Mighty Earth, said: "It's nonsense for the EU anti-deforestation law to allow Brazil, the country that experienced the highest deforestation rate in the world in 2020, to keep exporting beef and soy resulting from deforestation. If Vice President Timmermans is serious about protecting Europeans from fuelling forest destruction, he should make sure the upcoming EU law covers processed beef, leather and natural ecosystems like savannahs and wetlands."
Tesco's meat problem
Tesco's meat problem
Britain’s largest supermarket chain, Tesco sells a lot of meat – hundreds of millions of chickens a year alone. Three weeks ago, Tesco produced a new set of requirements for its meat suppliers to try and address the massive environmental consequences of those meat sales, starting with the soy-based animal feed used to fatten chicken, pigs and cows for its own-brand meat and dairy offer.
The long overdue update has been produced following campaign efforts from Mighty Earth and Greenpeace UK – with consumers calling on the company to drop the worst forest destroyers in its supply chain.
Meat has outsized environmental consequences. Raising meat produces more climate pollution, fouls more drinking water, and requires more land for livestock and feed globally than all other food crops combined - for a fraction of the nutritional value.
But the single most acute environmental consequence is the bulldozing and burning of millions of acres of rainforest and other ecosystems to make way for industrial animal feed plantations and cattle ranches.
There has been more land in the Amazon and Cerrado Biomes of Brazil bulldozed for soy plantations than the entire land mass of Israel or Slovenia in just 11 years.
Unless companies like Tesco take strict action, it could get worse very quickly: proposed legislation in front of the Brazilian legislature, which if passed, puts at least 19.6 million hectares of public land in the Amazon at risk from large agribusiness companies trying to grab land to make more industrial feed and meat.
Within this context, the new requirements for Tesco meat suppliers sourcing from South America to have a strict no-deforestation, no-conversion and no-human rights abuse policy – based on a ‘cut-off date’, a biome-wide agreement and improved transparency in sourcing represents an improvement over the status quo.
However, unless the details are strengthened, Tesco shoppers will still be eating chicken and pork connected to the destruction of the rainforest and tropical savannah in Brazil for some time.
Supplier impunity on deforestation
Tesco’s policy, in essence, allows agribusinesses that supply animal feed to continue driving deforestation with impunity while supplying the company. In particular:
- Tesco fails to spell out how or when it will suspend meat suppliers sourcing soy animal feed from companies that drive the destruction of the Amazon and the Cerrado in Brazil, nor how they will exclude traders from their supply chain complicit in deforestation. For example, even with a recent policy commitment to zero deforestation, US agribusiness behemoth Cargill will accept or condone deforestation in its supply chain until at least 2030 – giving industrial meat interests nine years to bulldoze as much land as possible.
- The scheme allows suppliers to purchase ‘mass balance’ credits or certificates if they are unable to prove that their soy is either from deforestation-free areas or from a ‘gold standard’ certified source of supply. This discredited approach is a ‘get out of jail free’ card because it could inadvertently support deforestation by allowing Tesco suppliers like Cargill to buy soy from recently destroyed forests and savannahs, and then buy credits from land that was cleared some time ago. This type of approach has also been criticised for lacking transparency and undermining traceability.
- Finally, while the policy pays lip service to the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFI), it fails to advance the principle of ‘group level accountability’ for deforestation into practice. The AFI is currently advancing guidance that bestows responsibility on traders for land conversion that happens on any farms owned by the farmers supplying them, rather than just the farms directly in their supply chain. At present, the Tesco policy allows traders such as Cargill to sell Tesco suppliers certified no-deforestation animal feed, while continuing to buy from farmers that are razing forests in other parts of its supply chain.
A tangible way forward
We have seen whole industries change when they enforce robust policies on suppliers engaged in deforestation, pollution, or human rights abuse.
Many consumer facing companies have adopted strict policies on palm oil, for instance, that simply required suppliers not to engage in deforestation, with no excuses, no credits, and no greenwashing. Those policies were a key driver of a massive environmental success: deforestation for palm oil is down more than 90%.
Until Tesco and other companies adopt similarly strong policies and cut ties with supplier companies that are driving the destruction of Brazil’s forests – such as JBS, Cargill and Bunge, its meat is still going to be driving environmental destruction on an enormous scale.
These policies are simple, clear and affordable: to comply, all producers must do is produce meat and beef on the 1.6 billion acres of previously deforested land instead of expanding on the agricultural frontier.
That should just be the easy first step, instead of something we must fight for. But if Tesco is going to provide truly sustainable protein, it needs to go further:
- Help shift consumers to sustainable, plant-based diets. As a leading retailer in the UK, Tesco has a role to play in influencing consumer behaviour towards these diets which begin to tackle the demand-drivers of deforestation.
- Support strong forest protections in producer countries, while promoting the use of existing agricultural or degraded land for soy production. Advocacy by Tesco and other supermarkets when forest laws are under threat can help in this regard, as can cutting commercial links with suppliers that support deregulation of forest protections.
- Work with others to ensure full transparency and traceability in meat from farm to product; ensure that all soy entering the market is from ‘clean’ suppliers and move forward the principle of ‘group-level responsibility’ for deforestation - meaning that companies cannot deforest in some parts of their operation while selling ‘sustainable soy’ simultaneously to other parts of the market.
While Tesco shows positive intent through its new policy, action in these three areas would prove that the company is serious in tackling the drivers of deforestation, rather than allowing its suppliers to cut down forests on one hand, while reaping the benefits of sustainability certification and credits on the other.