“For the first time as part of the COP process, the private sector has actually been welcomed and engaged intentionally.”
Case studies in the report include a JBS project called “Green Offices 2.0,” which involves the company working with Brazilian cattle producers to curb deforestation and implement conservation practices. Deforestation contributes up to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and clearing land for agriculture is the number one cause.
The report also highlights Bayer and PepsiCo projects that pay farmers to adopt practices like no-till and cover cropping. (Both of those have proven environmental benefits, but evidence of their ability to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions is slim.)
Weller said the group looked especially to examples of work in the U.S. that involved industry working in partnership with governments and public funding.
“It’s kind of the American way, based on good old-fashioned, incentive-based, voluntary technical assistance and investment in innovation and research and development,” he said. “That has proven to be a very successful elixir that has helped American agriculture really thrive and be among the most productive and beneficial in the world.”
One of the “network partners” Weller listed as a working group in his presentation is Embrapa, a state-owned agriculture research entity in Brazil. At COP30, it is hosting a trade show filled with event programming called the AgriZone.
Cattle are major contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, via the methane they produce while digesting food and from the gases produced in pools that store manure at industrial operations. (Photo credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
There, companies will host exhibits and panels, some of which involve government representatives. One panel titled “Can Animal Agriculture Drive Sustainability Solutions?” is hosted by Protein PACT, an initiative created by a coalition of animal agriculture companies and trade groups to promote the sustainability of meat. One of JBS’ founders is an executive board member for the Meat Institute, one of Protein PACT’s primary partners.
In a report released by the Changing Markets Foundation last week, researchers dug into the details of the AgriZone and said that while it was encouraging to see recent COPs give food and agriculture more attention, the AgriZone seems to serve a different purpose. “Rather than driving substantive reform, it appears designed to burnish agribusiness’s image on the world stage promoting a narrative of sustainability that bears little resemblance to reality,” they wrote.
Lilliston says that’s a real issue to consider. “One of the reasons why people are getting more and more cynical about these COP meetings . . . is how they’re just becoming trade shows and sort of expositions and they’re not actually leading to the kind of concrete action that we need,” he said.
A Climate ‘Super-Polluter’?
That criticism has been especially pointed over the last few weeks as multiple lawsuits and reports have shed additional light on the climate impacts of JBS’ operations in Brazil and beyond.
According to the Changing Markets Foundation report, agriculture is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil, accounting for nearly three quarters of its emissions, and methane emissions from livestock have been going up.
The country has made some progress toward reducing deforestation tied to agriculture in recent years, and JBS lists a goal of eliminating deforestation from its cattle supply chain by 2030. But in 2021, it set the same goal for 2025, and multiple recent investigations have found deforestation is still happening within its supply chain. In August, Brazil’s environmental agency fined JBS $75,000 for purchasing more than 800 cattle from ranchers on illegally deforested land.
“JBS is a climate super-polluter, and yet it’s trying to hoodwink the public with misleading happy talk about its false climate goals.”
In her email response, Fishel said JBS is partnering with various entities to reduce deforestation and is one of only two meatpackers in Brazil that is addressing deforestation risks in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. “The challenges of sourcing cattle that are free of illegal deforestation, however, are greater and more complex than any one stakeholder can solve on its own,” she said.
At the end of October, environmental organization Mighty Earth filed a lawsuit against JBS that alleges the company is deceived the public by claiming that it would reach net-zero emissions by 2040. “The world’s largest meatpacker doesn’t have any credible plan to tackle a staggering 97 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions found in its meat supply chains,” Alex Wijeratna, senior director of investigations and law at Mighty Earth, said in a press release. “JBS is a climate super-polluter, and yet it’s trying to hoodwink the public with misleading happy talk about its false climate goals.”
Days later, the company settled a similar case brought by the attorney general of New York that accused JBS of greenwashing in advertising campaigns that claimed it would cut emissions, eliminate deforestation, and reach net zero.
Fishel said the settlement does not reflect an admission of wrongdoing, and that as part of the resolution, the company will contribute $1.1 million to support climate-smart farming practices.
Important Climate-Food Negotiations at COP30
