São Paulo, Brazil, Meat giant JBS was forced to temporarily halt its annual shareholder meeting following interruptions by Greenpeace Brazil activists protesting the company's role in environmental destruction and climate breakdown.
Cristiane Mazzetti, Campaigner, Greenpeace Brasil said: "We took action today because JBS and its rapacious appetite for profit represents everything wrong with industrial agriculture. Its supply chain keeps fuelling deforestation in vital ecosystems like the Amazon and its colossal emissions – particularly methane – rival even those of some fossil fuel companies."
"JBS's meat empire was built on broken promises, environmental destruction and many corruption scandals. It shouldn't be rewarded with a New York Stock Exchange listing and offshoring to the Netherlands that will line the pockets of its billionaire bosses and fund a global expansion that will help tip the planet deeper into climate chaos. Companies like JBS have no place on the public markets."
The activists were forcibly removed from the Sao Paulo headquarters of JBS, the world's largest meat company, after interrupting a shareholder presentation by displaying hand banners reading '#RespectTheAmazon' and 'JBS: Your Profit, Our Extinction' in Portuguese.
A further ten activists protested at the entrance to the building, with some handcuffing themselves to the railings. Others unveiled a large banner reading 'JBS profits, forests burn', a reference both to the company's links to deforestation in the Amazon and industrial agriculture's outsized contribution to climate change.A giant 1200m2 banner bearing the same message was installed by Greenpeace Brazil climbers upon the roof of an adjacent JBS building.
Two of the activists impersonated billionaire JBS bosses Joesley and Wesley Batista, whose involvement in a string of high-profile corruption scandals are well established. An online dossier documenting JBS' long history of broken promises, and allegations of environmental and human rights abuses and political corruption was published today by Greenpeace Brasil.
As events unfolded in Brazil, protesters targeted JBS and JBS subsidiary buildings and products in several European countries, including in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy.
Mazzetti continued: "We are calling for JBS' listing to be stopped and for the Netherlands' regulator – Bureau Financieel Toezicht – to step up. We urgently need governments to hold industrial agriculture to account for the damage it's causing around the world, so we can stop this beef behemoth in its tracks."
The protest comes days after the US Securities and Exchange Commission greenlit an application by JBS to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange.[1] The listing is paired with a restructure that relocates JBS' parent company from Brazil to the Netherlands.
Photos and videos available from the Greenpeace Media Library.
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