SYDNEY, Monday 13 May 2024 — A new Greenpeace report has slammed Australia’s biggest beef buyers, including McDonald’s, Coles and Woolworths, for failing to adequately address deforestation in their supply chains.
Released today, Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard assessed how 10 of Australia’s top retailers and beef processors stack up in terms of becoming deforestation-free by 2025. Companies assessed include fast-food giants, major supermarket retailers, and beef processors.
Australia has one of the worst rates of deforestation in the world, driven largely by the bulldozing of forests for beef cattle grazing. The damning report found that all 10 of the companies assessed for the scorecard failed, with none scoring above 50% on Greenpeace’s metrics.
Greenpeace recently expressed concern over a proposal from industry body Cattle Australia to water-down the definition of deforestation in light of new EU regulations to crack down on products linked to forest destruction, likening it to “the fox guarding the henhouse.”
Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said that the scorecard results expose how little Australia’s big beef purchasers are doing to address the destruction of forests and nature in their supply chains.
“Our Deforestation Scorecard shows that all ten companies we assessed scored a big fat ‘F’. Given deforestation has been a persistent issue in Australian beef supply chains for decades, these results seriously call into question the environmental performance of these companies.
“This is simply unacceptable. Right now the beef industry is killing native wildlife and the big beef purchasers are corporations like McDonald’s, whose customers would be shocked to learn their Big Mac is fuelling the deforestation crisis and pushing threatened species like the koala to the brink of extinction.
“We’re sick of the glossy marketing from companies that have no idea where their beef comes from. The beef industry must address the destruction of forests and bushland happening on their watch — there must be no hiding behind lacklustre targets and watered-down definitions.
“We’re calling on these companies to publicly aim for, and achieve, conversion and deforestation-free supply chains by 2025, using global best practice definitions. This includes protecting important regenerated forest and threatened species habitat. If big corporations take action to change their practices, we can stop the destruction of our native wildlife and the places they call home.”
Glenn Walker, Head of Nature at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said that instead of tackling forest destruction, beef industry bodies are attempting to greenwash their way to community acceptance through weak so-called sustainability frameworks and completely watered-down definitions of deforestation.
“For many years the industry-led Australian Beef Sustainability Framework has provided cover for ongoing destruction of forests, attempting to downplay the serious problem of deforestation in beef supply chains.
“Cattle Australia is also now attempting to design and market its own fantasy definition of deforestation that would likely greenlight business as usual — a model of bulldozing and destruction that has fuelled the deforestation crisis in Australia.
“Enough of the bull. Big beef purchasers like McDonald’s, Coles and Woolies need to show leadership and fix this serious problem once and for all.”
—ENDS—
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Notes to Editor
- Greenpeace’s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard and full report can be found here. High res images and footage of recent deforestation can be found here
- Greenpeace frequently compiles corporate scorecards to provide public transparency to reality check or counter glossy marketing from companies in a variety of industries. Here we assessed how the commitments and implementation efforts of 10 of Australia’s largest beef buyers stack up against a conversion* and deforestation-free target by 2025. All companies were initially contacted requesting a response to a survey and offered a meeting to discuss their information. All companies were also sent their draft score to allow for further information to be provided or to challenge the fairness of the score. *The best-practice goal for corporate supply chains is ‘conversion-free’, which means no bulldozing or destruction of any natural ecosystems, not just forests.
- New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace showed that 668,665 hectares of koala habitat was bulldozed for beef production in Queensland in the last 5 years — 2,400 times the size of Sydney CBD.
The head of the United Nations called on Wednesday for governments to get together for an “honest dialogue” on how to transition away from fossil fuels.
Antonio Guterres told those gathered for the International Energy Agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris that “we must stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo”.
“Delay will only breed instability,” he said in a video message, “history is littered with the wreckage of failed transitions – broken economies, scarred communities and lost opportunities. We face a choice: design the transition together – or stumble into it through crisis and chaos.”
He called for “a dedicated global platform for honest dialogue on transitioning away from fossil fuels” that includes fossil fuel producers and consumers, developed and developing countries, civil society and public and private financial institutions.
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Guterres’ call contrasted sharply with the position of the United States. Ahead of the conference, US energy secretary Chris Wright threatened to pull Washington out of the IEA if the government-funded think tank continues to promote the energy transition.
At the event, Wright downplayed the importance of climate change, claiming that while it is a “really physical problem, it just isn’t even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem”. He called on the IEA to focus more on providing clean cooking solutions, which include fossil gas.
But, while US support wavers, the IEA’s head Fatih Birol celebrated that Brazil, India, Colombia and Vietnam have joined the Paris-based institution. He said this shows that the IEA’s strategy of engaging with the world outside developed countries was paying off. UK energy secretary Ed Milliband said it was a “vote of confidence” in the IEA.
Roadmap and conference
Guterres’ words come just over two years since governments agreed at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and three months after over 80 governments pushed at COP30 for a roadmap away from fossil fuels.
After the proposal failed to gain consensus at COP30 in the formal negotiations, Brazil’s COP30 presidency promised to deliver a global roadmap through an informal initiative before this year’s COP31 climate summit in Antalya.
Separately, Australia, which is leading the negotiations at COP31, vowed it would “continue to argue” for a transition away from coal, oil and gas in energy systems during its co-presidency.
Governments, experts, industry leaders and Indigenous representatives will be gathering this April in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a highly-awaited first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The government of Colombia, which is co-hosting the summit with the Netherlands, said it would seek to launch a permanent platform that would help a “coalition of the willing” accelerate the shift away from planet-heating coal, oil and gas beyond the UN climate process.
“Although there is growing consensus to gradually eliminate fossil fuels, there were still no specific spaces or meeting places dedicated to comprehending and addressing the pathways needed to overcome economic, fiscal and social dependence on fossil fuels, especially for producing countries,” Maria Fernanda Torres Penagos, director of climate change in Colombia’s Environment Ministry, said last month.
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It is unclear how that platform would cross over with Guterres’ suggestion. But Alex Rafalowicz, the director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (FFNPTI), which is supporting the conference, praised the UN chief’s “welcome leadership and vision”.
He said that the development of this platform is already happening through the FFNPTI, in which 18 countries are participating in discussions on a fossil fuel treaty.
“The Santa Marta conference is the first stop on this journey and all countries that are seriously committed to the 1.5C limit should be there”, he said, “we expect that out of Santa Marta we will have more proposals and commitments that can feed into the [Brazilian] COP Presidency roadmap”.
Coalitions like the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Powering Past Coal Alliance already offer platforms to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels. But major fossil fuel producers have not joined these alliances.
Guterres said that the platform should deliver a global transition plan which “aligns investment, energy security and climate goals – with concrete milestones and robust finance, particularly for developing countries”.
Guterres said in 2022 that, in order to be compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, wealthy countries should phase out coal by 2030 and other nations by 2040. The IEA said in 2021 that the world should reach net zero by 2050 to meet the 1.5C warming limit.
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UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition
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