Slash and carry: shippers ‘enabling’ beef-driven forest destruction

Brazilian beef has long been mired in controversy as a top cause of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, a critical line of defence against climate breakdown. But it would not get on to supermarket shelves worldwide without major international shipping firms.

And over a two-year period, companies including Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk and the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) transported more than half a million tonnes of beef and leather from abattoirs linked to tropical forest destruction in Brazil, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can reveal. The weight equates to half the UK’s annual beef consumption.

The findings have prompted calls for the companies to be held responsible.

“Major shipping companies are the silent enablers in the billion-dollar global trade of deforestation-risk commodities like beef and leather,” said Alex Wijeratna, senior director at environmental campaign group Mighty Earth. “But they slip under the radar when it comes to legal accountability.”

New data from the consultancy AidEnvironment shows that from August 2021 to July 2023, 12 meat plants run by Brazil’s biggest three beef companies – JBS, Marfrig and Minerva – were linked to at least 4,600 sq km of forest loss, an area three times the size of London. Shipping companies moved hundreds of consignments of beef and leather from these slaughterhouses to Europe, the US and China in 2022 and 2023.

At almost 190,000 tonnes, MSC carried the largest volume of beef and leather from the 12 abattoirs, according to shipping records. It was followed by Maersk, Hamburg Süd (which was acquired by Maersk in 2017), and Hapag-Lloyd. CMA CGM shipped the fifth largest amount in the period.

French MEP Marie Toussaint said TBIJ’s findings underlined the “urgency of taking action” to halt deforestation.

Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk declined to comment. MSC did not respond to TBIJ’s request for comment. CMA CGM said it is “committed to limiting the impact of its activities on biodiversity and helping to preserve fragile natural spaces and endangered species”.

No carriage policies

Most shipping companies have policies in place around the goods they carry. For instance, some will not transport illegally felled timber or trafficked wildlife. But these tend to align with existing international rules and restrictions – so they don’t appear to address beef and leather originating from deforested land.

Landmark EU legislation designed to tackle deforestation linked to beef, soy and other goods was due to come into force at the end of 2024, but will be postponed for one year. The EU confirmed that shippers would not be affected by these rules because they are not buying the products in question, though MEP Toussaint, who worked on the law, said that they “will play a crucial role in implementing due diligence”.

Another EU law also entered into course this summer, which will require companies to clean up their supply chains. And this could have consequences for carrying goods that affect forests, according to Simon Baughen, a shipping law professor at the University of Swansea.

“Large shipowners may come to be affected by [the supply chain law] if its environmental annex is subsequently modified to include the Deforestation Regulation,” Baughen told TBIJ.

In the meantime shipping companies themselves should do more, said Holly Gibbs, director of the Global Land Use and Environment Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Shipping firms must step up to make their own commitments to sustainable supply chains and transporting goods free of deforestation,” she told TBIJ.

Responding to TBIJ’s findings, CMA CGM said it was developing new procedures and would inform its customers to ensure compliance with upcoming regulations. It added: “The CMA CGM Group is closely following developments related to upcoming European regulations regarding the import on the EU market and the export from the EU of certain products associated with deforestation.”

With wider accountability requirements imminent within the EU under the supply chain law, the UK government is under pressure to explore similar transparency regulations.

Toussaint is calling for far-reaching changes. “The entire supply chain must be transformed to enable us to rebuild the economy within planetary limits,” she told TBIJ.

And campaigners have also stressed the need to scrutinise every stage of the process that carries deforestation-linked beef products to consumers around the world.

“It’s not just those who wield the chainsaws who should be held responsible for destroying forests,” said Nicole Polsterer from the forest protection group Fern. “Every link in supply chains which profit from tainted goods should be legally accountable for them.”

JBS said its policies prohibit the company purchasing from properties involved in illegal deforestation, areas under environmental embargo, or other criteria. It criticised the method used to calculate the amount of deforestation meatpackers are exposed to, which it said ignores a number of factors, including procurement policies that have led to advances. Some of the farms found to have deforested in its buying zones in the period either complied with its policies, had been blocked or had no commercial ties to the company, it added.

Marfrig also questioned the methodology and said it does not buy cattle from deforested areas, maintaining a “strict cattle procurement policy and adherence to [a] commitment signed with the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil”. Compliance with these, it said, was a non-negotiable commitment for the company.

Minerva said its monitoring systems ensure that 100% of purchases from direct cattle suppliers are verified, and that it has implemented a range of measures to ensure the traceability and socio-environmental compliance of its indirect suppliers.