Starting the Journey: Companies Collaborate for Beef Sustainability at Scale

This report explores how and why midstream and downstream companies have taken landscape-scale action in beef producing areas. The research found that these companies are collaborating in beef landscapes to prevent deforestation in the Amazon and conversion in the Cerrado biome as well as to include smallholders and indirect suppliers.

The study found that 5 downstream and midstream companies are taking landscape-scale action across 7 landscape and jurisdictional initiatives in beef producing areas. All seven landscape initiatives identified in the study as being supported by downstream and midstream companies are in cattle production regions in the Amazon or Cerrado in Brazil.

Recommendations for companies are:

• Continue and increase landscape-scale action;
• Enhance collaboration with peers, suppliers and buyers at landscape scale;
• Link companies’ sustainability programmes with landscape and jurisdictional initiatives;
• Collaborate with buyers of other cattle products, soy and other commodities and
• Support multi-stakeholder processes and platforms.

The report contains three other recommendations for the wider community of landscape and jurisdictional approaches. These recommendations are drawn upon data collected through desktop research, interviews with key stakeholders in the beef sector and an analysis of company responses to CDP’s forest questionnaire in 2022. This study is a collaboration between the Tropical Forest Alliance, Proforest, and CDP.

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This report is part of a global study that aims to understand how midstream and downstream companies have been using landscape and jurisdictional approaches to address commodity-driven deforestation. The study includes five commodity specific reports on cocoa, palm oil, pulp, paper and packaging, beef and soy landscape-scale action as well as a final summary report. The study also delves deeper into other possible uses of these approaches, in a report on meeting corporate climate, nature and people goals.