Our Environment

topo_environment

Water and Wastewater Management

(GRI 3-3; 303-1; 303-2; SASB FB-MP-140a.2)

Water stewardship is crucial to the resilience of our global community and business. Water is a critical component in the production of safe, high-quality food. The decreasing availability of clean, accessible water threatens food security around the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, agriculture represents 70% of all freshwater withdrawals, and as one of the largest global food companies, we recognize we must play a fundamental role in helping protect the responsible use of this critical resource.

In 2023, we invested US$ 27 million in Operational efficiency related to water.

 
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Water Use

Within our operations, we embrace our responsibility to decrease water use by monitoring withdrawal and usage and prioritizing reductions at every facility, while still preserving our high standards for food safety and sanitary conditions. Our Global Water Stewardship Policy guides our businesses, encouraging the development of strategies and projects that minimize the need for new water sources.

Each facility sets water-use goals and targets to encourage ownership and accountability and devotes financial resources to maintain alignment with business-specific policies and commitments. We also work cross-functionally with our environmental, engineering, operations and food quality and safety teams when designing and implementing conservation strategies to ensure they do not interfere with water quality of food safety protocols.

The primary indicators we measure related to water use include total water withdrawal by source, total water reused, and total water use intensity (water use per unit of production) to consistently identify opportunities for improvements, irrespective of changes in production. Unfortunately, we increased our water use 4% from 2019 to 2023. However, we will continue to focus on water in 2024 and beyond, ensuring that we stay committed to reducing usage of this critical resource while maintaining our high team member and food safety standards.

Global Water Withdrawal by Source (m³)

(GRI 303-3; 303-5)
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023*
Surface 45,228,057 26.30% 44,748,043 26.15% 45,997,592 25.44% 72,053,277 42.08% 106,366,267 42.22%
Groundwater 57,677,295 33.50% 56,957,299 33.28% 60,148,519 33.27% 63,577,839 26.35% 70,121,232 27.83%
Municipality 68,940,053 40.09% 69,323,367 40.51% 74,643,945 41.29% 76,188,320 31.57% 75,454,473 29.95%
Other 115,805 0.07% 113,939 0.07% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00%
*Huon Aquaculture is not included prior to 2023

Wastewater
Management

We monitor the treatment of all wastewater produced in our operations in accordance with appropriate regulatory standards. All processing facilities have wastewater treatment programs specifically tailored to their unique discharge permit requirements to help reduce our total discharged water volume and address noncompliance issues.

Depending on the operation, wastewater is either fully treated at our facilities or pre-treated on-site then fully treated in the municipal system.

Global Water Discharge by Recipient (m³)

(GRI 303-4)
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Water Body 80,931,603 52.62% 80,361,473 55.52% 83,400,523 56.84% 139,238,188 70.95% 148,073,190 71.82%
Municipality 47,130,042 30.64% 50,134,143 34.64% 50,447,505 34.38% 49,680,658 25.32% 50,280,615 24.39%
Land Application 18,349,248 11.93% 13,983,917 9.66% 12,886,170 8.78% 7,208,364 3.67% 7,708,050 3.74%
Other 7,406,135 4.81% 262,056 0.18% 6,557 0.00% 109,911 0.06% 124,309 0.06%

Global Water Consumption* (m³)

(GRI 303-5)
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Total Water Consumption 18,144,182 26,401,059 34,049,301 45,964,890 46,992,919
*Sum of all water that has been withdrawn and incorporated into products, used in the production of crops or generated as waste, has evaporated, transpired, or been consumed by humans or livestock, or is polluted to the point of being unusable by other users, and is therefore note released back to surface water, groundwater, seawater, or a third party.

Water
Impact

Conducting water risk assessments is also a critical element of our strategy and allow us to better identify and prioritize water resource projects that are locally relevant to each watershed and reduce the company’s overall water impact. We conduct assessments of our operations based on the World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Water Risk Filter. This process allow us to identify areas with high, medium and low exposure to water-related risks, including quantity (baseline water stress, inter-annual variability, seasonal variability, flood occurrence, drought severity, upstream storage and groundwater storage), quality (return flow ratio and upstream protected land), and regulatory and reputational risk (media coverage, access to water and threatened amphibians).

In 2023, we invested US$ 16.9 million on purchasing water due to water stress.

2023 Percent of Facilities Located in Water Stress Areas

(GRI 303-3)
Low Low to Medium Medium to High High Extremely High
Australia 34% 0% 12% 29% 24%
Brazil 86% 3% 8% 3% 0%
Canada 0% 50% 0% 50% 0%
Europe 21% 75% 1% 3% 1%
Mexico 14% 11% 3% 5% 68%
United States 53% 8% 19% 6% 13%
Water and Wastewater Management

Case Studies:

Each year, numerous capital projects and procedural improvements are installed to reduce and/or reuse water at JBS facilities.
In the United States for example, our Pilgrim’s chicken processing facility in Sumter, South Carolina, reduced water consumption by more than 10% from 2022 to 2023. Sumter’s primary reduction project focused on reusing partially treated wastewater in non-edible areas within the site. Alternatively, our Cold Spring, Minnesota, facility reduced year-over-year water usage by nearly 5% primarily due to procedural improvements applied during sanitation. Enhanced metering and tracking of data led our Broadway, Virginia, facility to better communicate reduction opportunities, leading to a noteworthy decrease in its water use. Perhaps the largest water reduction impact project took place at our Mayfield, Kentucky, facility. In 2023, the plant upgraded its open-vessel scalder (a warm water basin used in production facility) to a closed-vessel. This and other water reduction actions resulted in nearly a 1 gallon per bird water reduction due to technological advancements. However, significant co-benefits were also realized, such as lowering radiant heat loss into the immediate area, improving working conditions for team members, reducing fossil fuel usage that would be required to maintain water temperature, and mitigating the resulting GHG emissions.
The first step to reducing consumption involves accurately collecting and reporting real-time water usage data to better understand where the greatest water reduction impacts can be made across our business.
In 2022 and 2023 JBS Australia invested more than AU$ 4 million in water-related projects, including the installation of new water meters at all nine of its red meat processing facilities, at seven different points of production. Using data obtained from these meters, JBS Australia gained the ability to benchmark and review its performance and create a structured process for rolling out initiatives to reduce water consumption. The business also prioritized water pressure reduction trials at several facilities, including Dinmore (QLD), Brooklyn (VIC), and Rockhampton (QLD). Furthermore, water sensors were first installed at Rockhampton, leading to a reduction of ~50kL/day and then rolled out to other JBS Australia sites.
Each JBS facility is issued a permit by a regulatory authority to treat and discharge wastewater. Accordingly, we install and operate our treatment systems in conformance with the permit limitations, and generally outperform the limits.
An example is our Hyrum, Utah facility where the regulated annual total phosphorous limit is a strict 1 mg/l. However, in 2023, our facility’s total phosphorous levels averaged 33% lower at 0.658 mg/l. Recovering this incremental phosphorous benefits receiving waterways and allows us to repurpose the valuable nutrient into compost for land application use by community members in the region. Similarly, the facility’s total nitrogen discharge level was a 70% improvement from the regulated limit in 2023. Our 10-person environmental and wastewater management team at Hyrum provides 24/7 coverage of its wastewater treatment system, performs more than 100 daily tests on water quality, and immediately respond to process changes and/or incidents to ensure effective operations.
In Brazil, our businesses have expanded their water reuse capabilities across equipment cooling, landscaping irrigation, patio cleaning, vehicle washing, and other activities. In 2023, JBS Brazil operations reused 2.64 million m3 of water, 0.74% more than the previous year.
In 2023, Seara also invested in a posttreatment effluent system with an advanced combination of reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration to convert wastewater into reusable water. Implemented in three operational units, the project resulted in the production of over 155,000 m3 of water. Furthermore, Seara created an internal committee to evaluate and guide water-related practices in its operations throughout the year.
In 2022, JBS Australia placed a significant focus on improving water efficiency. It recognized that the first step to reducing consumption was accurately collecting, calculating, and reporting usage to better understand where the greatest impacts could be made. The business invested over A$2 million in water measurement and innovation in 2022 across multiple projects, including the installation of new water meters at all nine of its red meat processing facilities, at seven common key points of production. Using data obtained from these meters, JBS Australia can review its performance and create a structured process for rolling out initiatives to reduce water consumption.
The business also prioritized water pressure reduction trials in 2022 at a number of facilities, including Dinmore, QLD, Brooklyn, VIC, and Rockhampton, QLD. Furthermore, water sensors were installed at Rockhampton, leading to a reduction of ~50kL/day. The success of this initiative will be replicated at other facilities, resulting in major additional water savings. Collectively, these initiatives laid the foundation for water reductions in Q4 2022, which continued into 2023. Dedicating the success of its program to its team members, JBS Australia will continue to support water education initiatives to encourage behavior changes across the organization.
In nine Friboi facilities, we are investing R$ 54 million to install biodigesters, reducing methane emissions from our industrial operations and advancing on our journey to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2040. Biodigesters are anaerobic wastewater treatment systems that decompose organic matter present in effluents and produce biogas as a byproduct.
The biogas produced is rich in methane and can be used as a source of energy, along with various applications in renewable energy generation. It can be utilized to generate steam in boilers, replace biomass, produce electricity, or fuel the JBS transportation fleet by either substituting diesel or powering a hybrid system. Biodigesters have the potential to reduce 65% of Friboi's scope 1 emissions, resulting in a 24.6% decrease in scope 1 emissions across all activities within the JBS group in Brazil.
Across multiple JBS facilities around the world, we have pursued covering anaerobic lagoons and converting to activated sludge systems where applicable. Eight lagoons were approved for capital improvements in the U.S. and Australia and several others in Brazil were either covered or transitioned to an activated sludge system for nearly 100% reduction of anaerobic GHG emissions at these facilities.
Seara, for example, invested more than R$ 120 million in the modernization of its wastewater effluent treatment processes, implementing activated sludge systems in seven production facilities. This method allows for organic compost to be generated from activated sludge, aligning with the company’s Circular Economy principles.
In the United States, we continue to invest in both behavioral and capital improvements to reduce water usage in our operations. This was demonstrated at our beef facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, in 2022 when we approved US$ 570 thousand for the initial phase of a major water reuse initiative.
Since the project was brought online, the facility’s water demand has decreased by more than 5%. As a result, the Grand Island team is eager to implement the project’s secondary phase in the near future, believing that an additional 5% reduction is possible.
In Brazil, JBS Ambiental invests in technology to convert post-industrial plastic waste into small resins.
These are then transformed into other plastic materials, such as garbage bags and cages for animal transportation, which are used within JBS' own operations. To learn more about JBS Ambiental, please visit Circular Economy and Reverse Logistics.