WASHINGTON, D.C. Friends of the Earth US and Global Witness are urging shareholders in one of the world’s largest agri–commodity traders to vote in favour of tackling deforestation at the company’s upcoming AGM.
Bunge Limited, a global commodity trader headquartered in the United States, is one of the biggest soy players in Brazil’s Cerrado, a vast biodiverse savannah and a vital carbon sink: in 2018, the company exported nearly 16 million tons of soy from the area.
Yet in the Cerrado, and around the world, Bunge is failing to mitigate or prevent deforestation and human rights abuses by companies in its supply chain (see Notes to Editor below). Bunge’s deforestation risk is far higher than any other commodity trader: in Brazil alone, Bunge’s soy operations were linked through its supply chain to deforestation in an area four-fifths the size of Chicago between 2015 and 2018. The company was also linked to 16,942 fire alerts in 2020.