Banks| Dodgy Deals| Campaigns
About us| Blog| Publications| Successes| Contact us| Donate
About BankTrack
Visit us
Organisation
Our team
Our board
Guiding principles
Team up with us
Join our Active Allies list
Our annual reports
Funding and finances
History
BankTrack in the media
Our privacy policy
Donate
2021-02-24 00:00:00
Protect the climate but finance Total?
2021-02-16 00:00:00
Oil and gas financiers are staring down the barrel at $1 trillion in losses: time to rein in support for new pipelines
2021-02-11 00:00:00
Beefing up risk: the exposure of JBS’ financiers to financial, regulatory and reputational risks
2021-01-25 00:00:00
Why should banks support EU mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence?
2020-09-24 12:53:20
Oscislowo open-pit coal mine cancelled
2020-09-08 13:07:41
Strengthened OECD guidance on responsible banking
2020-02-25 10:35:27
JPMorgan Chase Coal and Arctic Policy a step forward but fails to match its climate responsibility as the world’s #1 Fossil Bank
2020-02-18 17:27:23
Civil society groups welcome Royal Bank of Scotland preparing to exit fossil fuels
Connect
2021-02-01 00:00:00
Banking on Thin Ice
2020-11-30 00:00:00
Soft Commitments, Hard Lessons: an analysis of the Soft Commodities Compact
2020-11-24 00:00:00
"Trust Us, We're Equator Banks": Part II
2020-11-18 00:00:00
Crude Risk: Risks to banks and investors from the East African Crude Oil Pipeline
2020-09-16 00:00:00
Principles for Paris-Aligned Financial Institutions: Climate Impact, Fossil Fuels and Deforestation
2020-08-17 00:00:00
"Trust Us, We're Equator Banks": Part I
See all publications
Browse
Home
Banks
Dodgy Deals
Map
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook page
Twitter channel
Home › Companies
JBSBrazil
About
Financiers
Impacts
Governance
Documents
News
Links

Active

This profile is actively maintained

Send feedback on this profile
Download as PDF
By: BankTrack
Created on: 2019-09-11 10:25:28
Last update: 2020-10-01 10:31:45

Contact:

Marília Monteiro, Forest Campaigner, at marilia@banktrack.org. 


Share this page:

September 2019 protest; Global Day of Action for the Amazon. Photo: Ayse Gürsöz / RAN via Flickr (CC BY NC 2.0)
Sectors Beef Industry, Commodities Trading
Headquarters
Ownership
listed on Brazil Stock Exchange

J&F Investimentos, owned by the Brazilian Batista family, holds a controlling portion of shares of 39.99%. JBS' complete shareholder structure can be accessed here.

Subsidiaries
JBS USA – United States
Pilgrim's – United States
Seara Foods – Brazil
Website https://jbs.com.br/en/

About JBS

JBS, established in 1953 in Anapolis, Goias, is a Brazilian company that is the largest (based on sales) meat processing company in the world, producing factory processed beef, pork, and poultry products, and also selling by-products from the processing of these meats. Its products are distributed under various brand names, such as Friboi, Swift, Bertin, Pilgrim's, and others. The company also operates related businesses, such as leather, biodiesel, personal care and cleaning, solid waste management, and metal packaging. It has 400 production units, facilities, and offices, of which 230 are used for the production of beef, pork, lamb, and poultry products. JBS is headquartered in São Paulo and has 150 industrial plants around the world.

Why this profile?

JBS’ beef operations in Brazil have an outsized deforestation risk exposure. The company operates 20 slaughterhouses within the Legal Amazon and its monitoring of supplier compliance is limited to its direct suppliers. Its indirect supply chain risks remain unmitigated. Since 2008, 20,296 hectares have been deforested in the sample of JBS’ direct supply chain, and 56,421 hectares in its indirect supply chain.

What must happen

Banks should not renew or take on new financing agreements with JBS until and if it fully eliminates deforestation and land rights abuses from its entire supply chain, as the company is highly implicated in deforestation issues in the Amazon. 

 

Impacts

Environmental and climate impacts

Animal agriculture Meat and dairy products have the greatest damaging effects on the environment. Animal agriculture - livestock and animal feed - is responsible for approximately 60% of food-related climate emissions and is the most significant driver of deforestation. Much of this forest conversion occurs in South America, particularly in the Amazon but also in dry woodland biomes such as the Gran Chaco – South America’s second-largest forest – and the Cerrado.

Deforestation Two agricultural activities, cattle ranching and soy production, are the leading drivers of deforestation in Brazil. Ranching alone leads to approximately 80% of Amazon deforestation, with 80% of Amazon forests cleared since 2014 being occupied by cattle. Brazil’s cattle herd exceeds 200 million heads and generates USD 123 billion annually. The economic and environmental implications of these commodities extend to the global market: Brazilian soy accounted for 14.3% of the country’s total exports, generating USD 31 billion in 2017 while cattle exports accounted for about USD 5.4 billion.In fact, Brazil leads the world in exports of both commodities. If the world continues to provide a market for these commodities, these industries will enjoy considerable economic incentives to aggressively expand activities to the detriment of forest protections and indigenous land rights.

JBS, Marfrig and Minerva are the three leading beef processors in Brazil and have major operations in the Amazon, where they account for around 70% of all cattle slaughtered. JBS, in the position of largest meat processor in the world based on sales, has an outsized deforestation exposure in its Brazilian beef supply chain. The company's monitoring system is limited to its direct cattle suppliers, and it does not yet have systems in place to systematically monitor its indirect suppliers. 

Illegal deforestation In March 2017 the Brazilian government fined JBS, for more than BRL 24 million for buying cattle from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon. The purchase of cattle from illegally deforested areas is an environmental crime and the government finding indicates a breach in the Plea Agreement (Termo de Ajuste de Conduta) signed in 2009 between the Federal Public Ministry and 69 companies, including JBS. Following the pressure of civil society campaigns, JBS has also signed the voluntary Zero Deforestation Amazon Cattle Agreement, in which it has committed to excluding source farms involved in any deforestation, slave labor, or invasions of indigenous lands and protected areas. Despite its measures, JBS continues to be linked to illegal deforestation in its supply chain, and an unspecified proportion of JBS' supply chain deforestation footprint may be in violation of Brazil's Forest Code. JBS was found to have purchased cattle from illegally cleared farms in Rondonia and Para. In July 2020, in Mato Grosso, JBS transported cows from embargoed farms to "clean" farms that met JBS' sourcing protocols. In 2017, JBS was fined BRL 24 million (USD 4.3 million) for buying cattle from illegally deforested areas in Para, although the company has appealed this fine. 

Other impacts

Corruption accusations The scale of allegations of bribery against JBS stretches from meat inspectors to the highest office in Brazil. Operation Car Wash was set up to investigate the bribery scandal that engulfed the Brazilian oil firm Petrobras in 2014. An astonishing network was revealed, stretching far beyond a single company and ultimately bringing down the Brazilian government. Agriculture has long held sway over Brazilian politics — many lawmakers are farmers — but Operation Car Wash suggested that influence was backed by systemic graft. When the scandal reached JBS’s holding company, Joesley and Wesley Batista, along with five other executives, signed a plea deal in May 2017, admitting bribery of politicians. Four months later the brothers were arrested on allegations of insider trading. In November 2018, Joesley Batista was arrested again, accused of bribing officials in 2014. Even now, the Batistas’ holding company is under investigation over potential involvement in alleged collusion between executives, politicians and public servants to divert resources from a government-owned bank (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism).

Governance

Bank policies

The following bank investment policies apply to this project:
Crédit Agricole
csr policies
2015-12-02 00:00:00

CSR Sector Policy - Forestry & Palm Oil

2015-12-02 00:00:00 | Crédit Agricole CIB
BNDES
csr policies
2016-05-04 00:00:00

Environmental guidelines for cattle-raising

2016-05-04 00:00:00 | BNDES

Financiers

Three banks - Santander, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays - provided underwriting services to JBS between 2013 and 2018 totalling USD 1.18 billion.

In May 2018, JBS and a group of banks - Banco Bradesco, Banco do Brasil, Bank of China and Caixa Economica Federal - agreed on a debt normalisation totalling BRL 12.2 billion (JBS Financial Statements Q4 2018). See below for more details.

Brazilian development bank BNDES holds 21.32% of JBS shares (dated 7 October 2019).

Large investment funds - such as Capital Group, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and Vanguard - hold equity investments in JBS. See below for more details.

News

| |
Type:
Year:
blog
external news
our news

Beefing up risk: the exposure of JBS’ financiers to financial, regulatory and reputational risks

2021-02-11 | Marília Monteiro - BankTrack, Merel van der Mark - Rainforest Action Network
blog
external news
our news

Big Meat: facing up to the demands for sustainability

2021-01-29 | Financial Times
blog
external news
our news

Major global banks complicit in widespread destruction of the Amazon rainforest linked to Brazilian beef companies, and international audits flawed

2020-12-03 | Global Witness
blog
external news
our news

How Morgan Stanley is linked to deforestation in the Amazon

2020-11-27 | Mongabay and Reporter Brasil
blog
external news
our news

Queimadas na Amazônia são 3 vezes mais comuns em áreas próximas a frigoríficos

2020-11-22 | Repórter Brasil
blog
external news
our news

JBS, Marfrig e Minerva seguem comprando gado de áreas desmatadas irregularmente

2020-11-22 | Climainfo
blog
external news
our news

Brazilian meat giants linked to farmer charged with Amazon massacre

2020-11-21 | Earthsight
blog
external news
our news

Satellites, maps and the flow of cattle: Brazilian solutions for reducing deforestation are already in use

2020-11-12 | Mongabay
blog
external news
our news

American financiers invested more than USD 18 billion in companies linked to Indigenous Rights violations in the Brazilian Amazon

2020-10-27 | Brasília, Brazil and Oakland, USA | Amazon Watch, Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB)
blog
external news
our news

UK purchased £1bn of beef from firms tied to Amazon deforestation

2020-09-21 | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
blog
external news
our news

Despite Progress, Brazilian Meatpacking Companies Still Cannot Promise ‘Deforestation-Free’

Despite Progress, Brazilian Meatpacking Companies Still Cannot Promise ‘Deforestation-Free’
2020-09-21 | Greenpeace
blog
external news
our news

How Morgan Stanley is linked to deforestation in the Amazon

2020-09-17 | Mongabay and Reporter Brasil
blog
external news
our news

BlackRock silent on livestock in latest global warming policy

2020-09-09 | Repórter Brasil
blog
external news
our news

Banks are fueling deadly fires, Covid-19 threatens to compound the risks

2020-09-08 | forestsandfinance.org
blog
external news
our news

Investors drop Brazil meat giant JBS

2020-08-27 | The Guardian
blog
external news
our news

Investors drop Brazil meat giant JBS

Top investment house delists world biggest meat producer over lack of commitment to sustainability issues
2020-07-28 | The Guardian
blog
external news
our news

Brazil: Cattle illegally grazed in the Amazon found in supply chain of leading meat-packer JBS

2020-07-16 | Amnesty International
blog
external news
our news

Butchering the Planet: the big-name financiers bankrolling livestock corporations and climate change

New Feedback's report draws attention to the environmental impacts of the livestock industry
2020-07-13 | Feedback Global
blog
external news
our news

Greenpeace liga frigoríficos a criação ilegal de gado em área protegida

Fazendas localizadas ilegalmente em unidade de conservação no Mato Grosso são fornecedoras de frigoríficos como Marfrig, Minerva e JBS, diz levantamento. ONG critica falhas no monitoramento e incentivo à grilagem.
2020-06-04 | Deutsche Welle
blog
external news
our news

How deforestation and cattle raising threaten biodiversity in Brazil

2020-06-04 | Greenpeace
blog
external news
our news

UK military beef supplier linked to illegal deforestation in Brazil

Beef sourced by Ministry of Defence in Bahrain comes from Frigorifico Sul, a firm that purchased thousands of cattle from ranchers fined R$33.5m (£6m) for environmental breaches
2020-04-28 | Earthsight
blog
external news
our news

New letter from 30 organisations urges investors and banks to note major risks of exposure to Amazon deforestation of buying shares in global meatpackers JBS and Marfrig

2019-12-11 | Global Witness
blog
external news
our news

The Chain: JBS backtracks on transparency as reputation risks grow

2019-10-15 | Chain Reaction Research
blog
external news
our news

Money to burn

More than 300 banks and investors back six of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn
2019-09-23 | Global Witness
blog
external news
our news

Global NGOs: Dirty Dozen Companies Driving Deforestation Must Act Now to Stop the Burning of the World's Forests

Groups call for the immediate suspension of all business and financing with traders active in the Brazilian Amazon "The Amazon is on fire. Corporations share the blame. They need to become part of the solution."
2019-08-30 | Amazon Watch
blog
external news
our news

Revealed: How the global beef trade is destroying the Amazon

2019-07-02 | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
blog
external news
our news

The swashbuckling meat tycoons who nearly brought down a government

2019-07-02 | The Guardian
blog
external news
our news

Complicity in Destruction II

How northern consumers and financiers enable Bolsonaro's assault on the Brazilian Amazon
2019-04-25 | Amazon Watch
blog
external news
our news

Operation Car Wash: Is this the biggest corruption scandal in history?

2017-06-01 | The Guardian
blog
external news
our news

Greenpeace Brazil Suspends Negotiations with Cattle Giant JBS

2017-03-23 | Greenpeace
blog
external news
our news

Brazilian beef giants agree to moratorium on Amazon deforestation

2009-10-07 | Mongabay

Documents

Type:
Year:
ngo documents
2021-02-25 00:00:00

Monitor - Steak in the supermarket, forest on the ground

2021-02-25 00:00:00 | Reporter Brasil
ngo documents
2020-12-21 00:00:00

Domestic Banks Finance 74% of Brazilian Beef & Soy

2020-12-21 00:00:00 | Chain Reaction Research
ngo documents
2020-12-18 00:00:00

JBS, Marfrig, and Minerva: Material Financial Risk from Deforestation in Beef Supply Chains

2020-12-18 00:00:00 | Chain Reaction Research
ngo documents
2020-12-18 00:00:00

Rapid Response - Soy & Cattle Report

2020-12-18 00:00:00 | Mighty Earth
ngo documents
2020-12-10 00:00:00

The money that feeds the cattle

2020-12-10 00:00:00 | Repórter Brasil
ngo documents
2020-11-27 00:00:00

Complicity in Destruction III

2020-11-27 00:00:00 | Amazon Watch
other documents
2020-11-22 00:00:00

Caso Carne Legal

2020-11-22 00:00:00 | Brazilian Federal Public Ministry
ngo documents
2020-09-28 00:00:00

JBS: Outsized Deforestation in Supply Chain, COVID-19 Pose Fundamental Business Risks

2020-09-28 00:00:00 | Chain Reaction Research
ngo documents
2019-11-04 00:00:00

JJF Holding Land-Grabbing Case Intensifies Soy Traders’ Exposure to Cerrado Deforestation

2019-11-04 00:00:00 | Chain Reaction Research
csr policies
2017-11-23 00:00:00

Responsible procurement policy

2017-11-23 00:00:00 | JBS
csr policies
2009-10-01 00:00:00

Minimum criteria for scale cattle operations

2009-10-01 00:00:00 | Agribusiness companies Brazil
ngo documents
2019-06-10 00:00:00

Countdown to extinction

2019-06-10 00:00:00 | Greenpeace
annual reports
2019-06-30 00:00:00

Annual integrated report 2018

2019-06-30 00:00:00 | JBS
ngo documents
2019-04-25 00:00:00

Complicity in destruction II

2019-04-25 00:00:00 | Amazon Watch

Links

The companies behind the burning of the Amazon

By Mighty Earth

https://stories.mightyearth.org/amazonfires/index.html

Greenpeace Brazil

https://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/

A Path Towards Zero Deforestation Cattle

By National Wildlife Federation

http://www.zerodeforestationcattle.org
Browse
Home
Banks
Dodgy Deals
Map
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook page
Twitter channel
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 24 324 9220
Contact@banktrack.org
©2016 BankTrack                Webdesign by BankTrack and EASYmind
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted