A briefing by sixteen environmental organizations has been circulated to financial institutions and potential investors in advance of the IPO requested by JBS S.A. Prominent organizations including Friends of the Earth, GreenPeace, and World Animal Protection were included as signatories to the report.  The document included a statement, “We believe investors have a fiduciary responsibility to consider the potential regulatory, litigation, reputational, ethical and market-based risks of investing in a firm significantly implicated in and exposed to climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, corruption and human rights abuses whether in a parent company or through its network of subsidiaries.”

In defense of JBS S.A., CEO Gilberto Tomazoni commented, “The only solution for deforestation in Brazil is to have a national mandatory traceability system.”  Tomazoni added, “We can then track movement of individual animals.” 

The reality is that restructuring of JBS S.A. with a dual listing on the NYSE and the Bovespa effectively provides the holding company owned by the Batista family with 90 percent of the voting rights, ensuring that shareholders will not be able to influence company policy.