According to an investigation by Global Witness, a single JBS supplier destroyed more than 1,200 hectares of jaguar habitat over 10 years in a protected area in Brazil called APA Meandros do Araguaia. The Global Witness report states that the farm fined was an indirect supplier of cattle to JBS, the world's largest meat processing company, between 2019 and 2022. According to the organisation, this farm transported cattle to another unit of the group, which then sold to the company's direct suppliers on at least two occasions.

JBS reached an agreement with the Mato Grosso State Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPMT) after polluting a watercourse in Lucas do Rio Verde by discharging untreated effluent from its cattle feedlot. According to the MPMT, the company was also fined by the State Secretariat for the Environment for operating without an environmental license and for discharging effluents without a permit to use water resources. As a result of the pollution, JBS will be required to pay R$200,000 (around US$ 35,000 at that time).

Greenpeace International has challenged JBS’s attempt to list on the New York Stock Exchange and relocate its corporate headquarters to the Netherlands, citing the company’s links to corruption, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and human rights violations. The organization’s legal team sent a letter to a Dutch notary firm, with a copy forwarded to Dutch regulatory authorities.

JBS’s Global Sustainability Director told Reuters that the company’s net-zero emissions by 2040 target was merely an “aspiration”, stating that “it was never a promise that JBS was going to make this happen.” In 2021, the company had announced this target as a “commitment” and a “promise,” but as the article revealed, Jason Weller clarified that it was not a formal commitment.

A reassessment of 68 deforestation cases linked to JBS suppliers in Brazil, conducted by Mighty Earth, revealed that 22 of the 59 farms analyzed showed an increase in deforestation after the initial detection of forest loss. In addition, the study indicates that another 37 cases associated with JBS’s supply chain accounted for an additional 60,218 hectares of deforested land up to September 2023.

JBS is the meat processor with the greatest exposure to deforestation risk, according to Global Canopy. The organization estimates that the company’s supply chain is linked to an area of 805,370 hectares of recently deforested land.

Four members of the European Parliament questioned the European Commission about JBS’s alleged greenwashing, referencing a complaint filed in New York over “unproven and misleading” claims regarding the company’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2040. The Commission responded that it “is aware of the allegations against JBS, as well as of the multiple negative impacts that misleading green claims have on consumers and on businesses making genuine efforts to improve their sustainability.”

An investigation by Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s investigative journalism arm, revealed that JBS purchased cattle more than 100 times from a ranch that was fined nearly £2 million for illegally destroying unique and vulnerable areas of the Pantanal. According to an analysis by AidEnvironment, Fazenda Querência deforested a total of 50 square kilometers of native vegetation between 2019 and 2023—an area equivalent to half the size of Paris. As revealed by the investigation, between 2018 and 2023, JBS’s own transparency platform recorded 112 cattle purchases made by its two meatpacking plants in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), directly from the ranch.

According to Folha de São Paulo, Ibama fined JBS R$615,500 (around US$ 108,000 at the time the fines were issued) for selling cattle from illegally deforested areas. The violations were identified at the company’s meatpacking plant in Tucumã, Pará (PA), during Operation Carne Fria 2.