Blackrock Owns $400 Million Stake In 3 Amazon Basin Meatpackers, But They're Oh So Green
Wall Street fund manager BlackRock administers 2.2 billion reais ($408 million) in shares in the three largest Brazilian meatpackers operating in the Amazon today. The cattle purchase and slaughter operations of JBS, Marfrig and Minerva involve 6.9 million hectares (17 million acres) of land at high risk of deforestation. That puts BlackRock’s investments at odds with its own public rhetoric of recent years, in which it has positioned itself as leading the financial industry’s prioritization of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria when deciding where to invest a client’s money.
Most of its investment in the Brazilian meatpackers — 1.8 billion reais, or $334 million — is in JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer. JBS is also the company most exposed to Amazon deforestation, according to the conservation nonprofit Imazon. In July, an Amnesty International report said JBS was slaughtering cattle that originated from illegal farms located in conservation areas and Indigenous lands. BlackRock also has 213 million reais ($39.5 million) invested in Marfrig and 131 million ($24.3 million) in Minerva, who rank fifth and 10th, respectively, on Imazon’s ranking of deforestation risk. Independent investigations also show that these companies have indirect suppliers that raise cattle illegally in the rainforest.
This investigation by ((o))eco looked at the content of 953 stock funds managed by BlackRock, 24 of which hold shares in the Brazilian meatpackers. BlackRock confirmed the data to ((o))eco; the values are given in the local currency, with the dollar figures based on the exchange rate on Aug. 18.
In January this year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink published an open letter in which he announced measures to “position sustainability at the heart of investment strategy” of the company, the world’s biggest money manager. This vision, applied to its investments in the Brazilian meatpackers, could make BlackRock the driving force in holding the biggest companies in the beef industry to their promise of exclusively offering zero-deforestation meat. That commitment stems from 2009, but none of the companies has fulfilled it yet. The issue resurfaced in July, when the companies began to come under pressure from their international investors who didn’t want to be associated with the fires and deforestation razing the Amazon rainforest.
EDIT
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/blackrocks-400m-stake-in-amazon-meatpackers-defies-sustainability-cred/
