An attempt by Brazilian protein giant JBS to scupper a legal case targeting its “misleading” and “feel-good promises of net zero” has been rejected by a US judge.
The world’s largest meat company hit Mighty Earth with an anti-Slapp legal challenge in April as part of a bid to derail the campaign group’s ongoing lawsuit against JBS.
The suit alleged the business’s Net Zero by 2040 pledge, as well as its promise to eliminate illegal Amazon deforestation from its beef supply chain, amounted to false and misleading greenwashing claims.
The Mighty Earth case centred on JBS USA’s claims it would hit its 2040 net zero target “despite documented global expansion plans and GHG reduction targets that cover just 3% of parent company JBS Group’s total emissions”.
But in response, JBS – which owns major UK supplier Pilgrim’s Europe – tabled a special motion at the DC Superior Court in April using anti-Slapp regulations, in a bid to have the case thrown out before it could be heard in full.
Often described as a form of ‘lawfare’, so-called Slapp suits stand for ‘Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation’. They were increasingly used by powerful corporations “to silence or intimidate environmental and public interest groups from taking companies to court on free-speech grounds”, Mighty Earth said.
Anti-Slapp laws are therefore designed to stop legal action being used to suppress free speech and public interest advocacy.
JBS’ motion argued Mighty Earth’s statements challenging its net zero and anti-deforestation claims infringed the company’s First Amendment right to speak on matters of public interest.
However, the motion was rejected earlier this month by DC judge Veronica Sanchez. She sided with Mighty Earth in finding that JBS was not merely expressing views on environmental issues – which would be protected – but making specific claims about its own business practices and future plans.
Those claims, including its pathway to net zero and efforts to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain, could influence purchasing decisions and therefore amounted to commercial speech rather than protected public-interest advocacy, she ruled.
“We’re really glad the judge has rejected JBS’s frankly frivolous Slapp suit attempt to silence and shut down our important lawsuit standing up against JBS’s false and misleading net zero and deforestation claims,” said Alex Wijeratna, Mighty Earth senior director for investigations and law.
JBS has until 10 October to appeal Judge Sanchez’s order. Mighty Earth said the business had also filed another attempt at a motion to dismiss last June, which could be considered by Judge Sanchez after this date.
JBS was approached for comment.
The legal setback follows JBS’ own retreat from its flagship climate pledge, after it emerged the meat giant had quietly abandoned its 2040 net zero goal during the summer.
The business said it would instead establish Scope 1 and 2 targets of 30% reduction by 2030 and a 70% reduction by 2050, against a 2019 baseline.
However, its revised plan did not include Scope 3 emissions or emissions generated chiefly by livestock it bought from farmers, focusing only on “the part of our footprint we control directly”.
Explaining the change in strategy, JBS global chief sustainability officer Jason Weller said: “The further we got into execution, the clearer it became that a net zero goal spanning hundreds of thousands of independent agricultural producers across tens of millions of hectares in dozens of countries – each with different practices, different baselines, and no standardised measurement infrastructure – is an immense challenge.”
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