Brazilian beef and leather companies fall short in tackling deforestation, a study finds

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The next United Nations climate conference, COP30, will be held in Belem, the capital of an Amazon region where widespread deforestation mainly driven by cattle farming has turned the surrounding rainforest from a vital carbon sink into a significant carbon source.

Now a new report concludes around 80% of Brazil’s leading beef and cow leather companies and their financiers have made no commitments to stop deforestation.

The study, released Wednesday by the environmental nonprofit group Global Canopy, highlights the country´s 175 most influential beef and leather companies and financial institutions that have supported them with $100 billion. This amount is one-third of the annual funding that wealthy nations pledged to provide for climate finance in developing countries during COP29 last month in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Although cattle is the single most influential commodity for deforestation and linked greenhouse gas emissions, the report ... reveals a picture of staggering inaction from corporates and financial institutions alike in Brazilian supply chains,” the study said.

The record is poor even among companies that commit to halting deforestation, such as JBS, according to the report. The giant meatpacker is one of the few to make such commitments and one of only two to have a system for tracing cattle all the way to the production unit. Yet the report ranks the company as the most likely to be buying cattle and cow leather from recently deforested land.

This assessment of deforestation risk is based on the number of cattle bought from ranchers in each Brazilian municipality and its deforestation rate. Meatpackers buying from high-deforestation areas are more likely to source from recently cleared land than those buying from low-deforestation...