Assessing facility-level risks in commodity supply chains: A supply shed analysis of Brazilian slaughterhouses

This resource was originally published by Trase.

Companies buying beef from Brazil should take a data-driven approach to assessing the risks of slaughterhouses and farms supplying cattle linked to deforestation, according to a new report by Trase.

Based on the report, Trase makes four important recommendations for governments, companies and financial institutions:

• Improve data quality and transparency: The Brazilian government should prioritise filling gaps in existing datasets, particularly cattle movement records (Guia de Trânsito Animal, GTA) movement records and property registry data (Cadastro Ambiental Rural, CAR) and ensuring they are better integrated and publicly accessible.
• Adopt data-driven risk assessment: Companies and financial institutions should move away from simplified radius-based estimations. By using municipality-weighted models, organisations can identify high-volume sourcing regions that are also high risk, enabling more effective engagement with suppliers.
• Coordinate global standards: There is a need for alignment among standards organisations to provide guidance on using data-driven methods. This will encourage broader corporate disclosure and standardise how deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and other impacts are reported when farm-level data is unavailable.
• Address shared risks through landscape Initiatives: Because risks such as deforestation linked to indirect suppliers are shared by multiple slaughterhouses, it makes sense for companies to collaborate through landscape-scale investments. By sharing the costs of monitoring, legal compliance and pasture restoration, companies can improve the compliance of entire regions, reducing the risk for every participant in the supply shed.

Authors: Osvaldo Pereira, Thais Pacheco Menezes, Helen Bellfield, Andrea Santos Garcia, Nicolás Martín and Bernardo Loureiro