{"id":10537,"date":"2019-09-10T12:35:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T15:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazoniasocioambiental.org\/radar\/corporations-pile-pressure-on-brazil-over-amazon-fires\/"},"modified":"2019-09-10T12:36:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T15:36:31","slug":"corporations-pile-pressure-on-brazil-over-amazon-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/radar\/corporations-pile-pressure-on-brazil-over-amazon-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporations pile pressure on Brazil over Amazon fires"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">The Guardian<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">30 de agosto de 2019<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Dom Phillips<\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Financial pressure is growing on\u00a0Brazil\u00a0over fires in the Amazon and the far-right president\u2019s belligerent response to them.<\/p>\n<p>Asset managers, pension funds and companies have issued warnings, halted deals and stopped purchases of government bonds.<\/p>\n<p>The US clothing company VF Corporation, which is behind brands including Timberland, Kipling bags and The North Face, has suspended Brazilian leather purchases, and Norway\u2019s two biggest investors have warned global companies against contributing to environmental damage.<\/p>\n<p>Fitch Solutions Macro Research, formerly BMI Research, issued two reports warning of \u201cincreased scrutiny\u201d and \u201ceconomic risks\u201d after the fires, which numbered\u00a029,000\u00a0in the Amazon biome in August, the most since 2010.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element-rich-link--tag element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link-tag\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-tag\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__image-container u-responsive-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/6e299eefbc2ac00348afa53ba249c7fd2e575966\/0_27_3121_1872\/master\/3121.jpg?width=460&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=c7ff078095c7b77622f76746f02c1c79\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Fitch said: \u201cWe believe that international concern over deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon basin will create headwinds to export demand and investment inflows.\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>VF Corporation said less than 5% of the leather it used to manufacture goods was sourced from Brazil. But the symbolism of the decision by such high-profile brands was not lost on market specialists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe disaster has already been done to the environmental image,\u201d said Fabio Silveira, a director and partner at Macrosector, a S\u00e3o Paulo financial consulting outfit. That means that the cost lenders put on Brazil\u2019s environmental risk, previously regarded as close to zero, just went up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cBrazilian companies and the Brazilian government lose. Nobody can deny international banks put a cost on environmental risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The emerging market debt team at Scandinavia\u2019s Nordea Asset Management\u00a0quarantined\u00a0Brazilian government bonds, meaning they would no longer buy but only sell. It said: \u201cPresident Jair Bolsonaro is expected to weaken environmental protections to accommodate extractive activities, agribusiness expansion and development of large-scale infrastructure projects. We have come to conclude that these risks have materialised.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-1 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__image-container u-responsive-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/46ab08245b58603d5e89fb843fb1e032dacd5610\/0_0_2480_1488\/master\/2480.jpg?width=460&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=6046442c34cb4033f88467207425287e\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Thede R\u00fcst, the head of Nordea\u2019s emerging markets debt team, voiced concerns over an important trade deal agreed between the South American trade block Mercosur and the European Union that still needs to be ratified. The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron \u2013 involved in a\u00a0diplomatic brawl with Bolsonaro\u00a0after leading a G7 plan to donate\u00a0$20m\u00a0to Brazil, which Bolsonaro\u00a0rejected\u00a0\u2013 have threatened to derail it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe link European politicians make between the Mercosur trade agreement to the fires is relevant \u2013 it also made us very cautious,\u201d R\u00fcst said.<\/p>\n<p>The EU was Brazil\u2019s second biggest export market last year after China, with 17% of the total value, according to Fitch Solutions and Trade Map. China took 27%, the US was third with 12% and the Middle East represented 6%.<\/p>\n<p>Norway\u2019s biggest investors, Storebrand ASA and the pension fund KLP, which according to\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0manage about $170bn in assets between them, both began contacting companies to ensure they did not contribute to environmental damage after the fires.<\/p>\n<p>Jeanett Bergan, KLP\u2019s head of responsible investments, said: \u201cIf there is evidence that we are invested in companies that contribute to develop new deforested land or deforest areas \u2026 we will withdraw from investments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such reactions, while far from the generalised \u201cboycott Brazil\u201d campaign some environmentalist activists have been calling for, are bad news for a country still struggling to recover from its worst recession in decades and battling 12% unemployment.<\/p>\n<p>In a live broadcast on Facebook on Thursday night, Bolsonaro highlighted data released that day showing a better-than-expected 0.4% growth in Brazil\u2019s GDP in the second quarter of this year. He also pointed to a trade deal Mercosur had agreed with\u00a0EFTA, the European free trade group formed by Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. And he made it clear he had no plans to change tack on the Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>Bolsonaro has trumpeted the public support he has received from Donald Trump. His congressman son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, and the foreign minister, Ernesto Ara\u00fajo, were due to meet the US president on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Fabio Alperowitch, the founder and portfolio manager at the S\u00e3o Paulo brokers Fama Investimentos, said Bolsonaro\u2019s words and actions suggested the government \u201cwill not change direction\u201d. Alperowitch\u2019s firm does not invest in companies doing business in the Amazon, but 80% of his clients are foreign institutions and pension funds and he said many had been in touch to express concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Brazilian financial specialists raised concerns about what might come next. \u201cMore and more investors look beyond quarterly results and concern themselves with how sustainably companies operate,\u201d said Mauro Cunha, the president of the Brazilian Association of Capital Market Investors. \u201cA negative perception of Brazil in this area could even prompt big international funds to disinvest, impacting on the price of Brazilian assets.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Para leer el texto original: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/30\/corporations-pile-pressure-on-brazil-over-amazon-fires-crisis?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0dyZWVuTGlnaHQtMTkwOTA2&amp;utm_source=esp&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=GreenLight&amp;CMP=greenlight_email\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/30\/corporations-pile-pressure-on-brazil-over-amazon-fires-crisis?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0dyZWVuTGlnaHQtMTkwOTA2&amp;utm_source=esp&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=GreenLight&amp;CMP=greenlight_email<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The Guardian 30 de agosto de 2019 Dom Phillips [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Financial pressure is growing on\u00a0Brazil\u00a0over fires in the Amazon and the far-right president\u2019s belligerent response to them. Asset managers, pension funds and companies have issued warnings, halted deals and stopped purchases of government bonds. The US clothing company VF Corporation, which is behind brands including&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":10534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radar","category-1","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10539,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537\/revisions\/10539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}