It is unreasonable to place blame on one business for the degradation of the world’s current climate. However, environmentalists seem to attack particularly successful businesses, such as JBS foods, which has already stated that they would reach net zero emissions by 2040. JBS Foods has the largest meat producer in the world with operations all over the globe. Because they need to produce large quantities of meat, they need cows, pigs and great expanses of agricultural land. As a result, deforestation is unfortunately an inevitable option for them. But due to their status as the largest meat processor, they have been targeted by environmentalists and those who are concerned about the current state of the environment. These individuals aim to make JBS responsible for the lack of progress on climate change. The urgency of climate change should always be taken into consideration; however, shifting the attention towards JBS as the prime causation of a worsening climate is reckless.
One of the largest contributing factors to climate change is deforestation. In the perspective of environmentalists, the more trees that are cut down, burnt and left to rot, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere in large quantities. This, in turn, contributes heavily to global warming. As global warming and climate change is consistently a hot topic in regular conversation, companies such as JBS have no choice but to be targeted and portrayed as responsible for the lack of change in today’s climate.
Those who target these successful businesses target their profits in order to instigate some sort of action that could go towards climate change. They expose the number of profits that are made from their meat productions across the globe and suggest that their profits could’ve been used to contribute to end deforestation or decrease their meat production.
JBS has, in fact, made promises to minimize their deforestation habits, such as ending their direct suppliers that have been contributing to deforestation. There have been claims that they have made no effort since their success in sales overpowers their mission to reach the net-zero goal. Avid environmentalists continue to target and place pressure on businesses to make them feel as if they are responsible for the imbalance in climate change. This can prevent the general public from considering other major contributing factors to global warming such as burning fossil fuels. We burn fossil fuels every day simply by running our beloved Mercedes, Toyotas and Kias. But if we are to put pressure on JBS, we must hold our favorite car brands to that same standard as well.
It’s not that these businesses are ignoring the environmentalist perspective; rather, they are merely prioritizing the consistently high demand for their product. The reasoning behind their lack of efforts to prevent climate change is because the high consumer demand for meat itself discourages their intention to prioritize their pledged goal of net-zero emissions. In the perspective of businesses, they are simply following the laws of consumer demand. Although these environmentalists promote their philanthropy and suggest ethical solutions, it is an impossible task for businesses to suddenly decrease the amount of supply of a product they have the most success in.
