Brazilian-Beef-Final_Optimized1

DEFORESTATION AND THE BRAZILIAN BEEF VALUE CHAIN
FIGURE 20.
Attributing deforestation will soon be challenged: Example of beef and palm oil
PRODUCER:
PRIMARILY PALM OIL
WITH SOME BEEF
PRODUCER:
PRIMARILY BEEF
WITH SOME PALM OIL
Deforests land to expand
palm oil production, but it is
attributed to beef
Deforests land to expand beef
production, but it is attributed
to palm oil
HYPOTHETICAL
BUYER:
VALE BIOPALMA
HYPOTHETICAL
BUYER:
JBS
Derivatives of beef, soy, and palm oil are used in millions of end products. Large retail firms that
source these commodities—and consumers of final products—increasingly want to be sure they are
not contributing to deforestation in the Amazon. Yet the links are not always obvious. To illustrate,
a sample list of U.S. corporations that source beef products from Brazil is included in Appendix A.
Consumers of products such as canned corned beef from Goya, or leather shoes from Birkenstock,
can easily make the connection to ranching in Brazil. But other connections are not as widely
recognized. For example, the public may not be aware that JP Morgan Chase trades in Brazilian
leather, thus potentially linking it to Amazon deforestation. New Ford car owners may not consider
the origins of their leather seats, and pet owners may assume Hartz dog treats come from a
sustainable source. If future regulatory efforts continue to address deforestation commodity by
commodity, the links to end products may become only more complex and difficult to isolate.
6
A Jurisdictional Approach
Commodity-by-commodity efforts such as the GTPS and RTRS have worked successfully with
powerful firms to prevent deforestation in the beef and soy supply chains, thus helping to achieve
impressive reductions in land clearing. However, future commodity-by-commodity efforts are not
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