JBS's Green Offices have already secured 2,000 hectares of forest restoration
JBS, one of the world's largest food companies, has just reached the milestone of 2,000 hectares dedicated to forest restoration, an area equivalent to 2,000 soccer fields, through the Green Offices program. In just two years of operation, the initiative has already addressed the socio-environmental regularization of 6,700 farms.
"Our work understands that the strategic solution for the sector as a whole is to tackle deforestation together with farmers and also to integrate the small producer. It's not enough to just block those who are not in compliance with our purchasing policy, for example. It's necessary to provide guidance and support those who act in good faith on the path to regularization", says Liège Correia, director of Sustainability at JBS Brazil.
Currently, JBS monitors 73,800 potential cattle suppliers daily. When one of these farmers or another potential one is identified with any kind of non-compliance with the country's socio-environmental laws or with the standards of JBS's Responsible Procurement Policy, their farms are immediately blocked. At this point, the work of the Green Offices offers support to understand and assist those producers who want to embark on the path of sustainability towards the regularization of their areas.
JBS currently has a total of 19 active Green Offices in the North and Central-West regions of the country. In June, the company inaugurated its first unit in the state of Acre, in Rio Branco. The initiative was created in 2021, initially with offices in the states of Pará, Rondônia, Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso do Sul. As the program matured and the organic demand from the producers themselves increased, the work evolved. "We are growing rapidly, right in line with our goals for 2023. We started this year with 18 units and will soon reach our goal of having 20 Green Offices by December", explains the sustainability director.
Despite such progress, there is still significant room for growth. After all, since the work began, 18,700 producers have approached JBS and initiated service protocols. That is, considering the current total of 6,700 already regularized farms, there are still at least 12,000 ranchers in the process of environmental regularization through the assistance of the Green Offices. This means that as soon as these producers move forward to regularize their situations and meet the requirements of regulatory agencies, there will be an increase in an even larger contingent of producers ready to operate regularly. A gain for JBS, but also for the entire cattle chain.
Beyond the numbers, the program's success has also been highlighted by key stakeholders in Brazil and abroad. A unique survey sponsored by the UK government has just highlighted the Green Offices as an exemplary environmental practice. The analysis was featured in the study "Sustainability in the Meat Chain" conducted by Agroicone, in partnership with the international initiative Partnerships for Forests (P4F), which aims to accelerate projects in which public and private sectors and civil society promote economic development through sustainable land use, contributing to deforestation reduction.
According to the study, the adoption of technologies and good agricultural practices in Brazil, such as JBS's Green Offices, has been growing, and the results are already becoming visible - both for the environment and for the rural producer. "The Green Offices are a demonstration of our commitment to sustainability and promoting practices that have a positive impact on the production chain and reduce deforestation and carbon emissions", says Alexandre Kavati, Sustainability Manager at Friboi.
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