World’s Largest Meat Supplier Seeks Green Credentials for Brazil at COP30
(Bloomberg) -- The world’s largest meat supplier is aiming to burnish Brazil’s green credentials at this year’s COP30, presenting evidence that the country’s cattle aren’t so harmful to the environment.
JBS NV is working with the University of Kansas to show that Brazil’s cattle production plays a role in capturing greenhouse gases, helping to counter concerns over methane emissions. The company plans to showcase the findings at COP30, the world’s most important climate conference.
The way carbon emissions are currently calculated is flawed, JBS Chief Executive Officer Gilberto Tomazoni said during an event in Sao Paulo. The method — based on European guidelines and temperate climate — is “wrong” as it considers only carbon emissions, not gases captured during the whole production process, he said.
“Let’s do the math the other way around,” Tomazoni said, by calculating how much carbon is captured and seeing that waste does not contaminate the soil. “On the contrary, it helps make the soil healthier, reducing imports of fertilizers from Russia and Morocco and the use of pesticides.”
He said Brazil, the world’s top beef exporter, is being judged by standards that prevent products from entering the European market. Some Brazilian agribusiness institutions and companies have argued that the tropical climate and local cattle production systems have different outcomes from other emissions assessment methods and need to be taken into account.
The cattle ranching industry in Brazil has also faced criticism that it has been a major cause of deforestation in the country.
Tomazoni said Brazil has real examples of carbon capture in production that are expected to be presented during COP30. One of them is Fazenda Roncador, which has more than 70,000 cattle and data of greenhouse gas emissions and capture from the last 10 years validated by Brazil’s state-owned agricultural research company Embrapa.
The University of Kansas was brought in to do similar research, in order to provide validation from a non-Brazilian institution, Tomazoni said.
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