Carolina Galvani - Sinergia Animal
Comments20
Sinergia Animal is concerned regarding the engagement practices and level of transparency demonstrated by Vetted Causes. We have not been provided—nor have we seen made available to the public—any ethical guidelines, a professional and respectful code of conduct for engaging with charities, or clear information about the research methodology and qualifications of the specialists involved in their evaluations.
Given these concerns, we have chosen to limit our engagement with Vetted Causes to written communication.
We also disagree with the imposition of arbitrary deadlines in Vetted Causes’ processes. As a charity with limited resources and critical ongoing work, it is not always feasible for us to respond within compressed timeframes without compromising our well-being and effectiveness. Although we requested to be consulted regarding suitable timelines for responding to clarification questions and reviewing the article draft, these requests were not accommodated.
Had the process been more transparent and respectful, we believe readers of this Forum would have benefited from more accurate and balanced information, helping to prevent the spread of mistaken information.
A summary of our responses:
- JBS – Ear Notching: Classified as Non-Existent by Vetted Causes
Vetted Causes’ analysis was incorrect—the commitment does, in fact, exist. The only issue was an unintentional error by Sinergia regarding the stated deadline. - JBS – Gestation Crates: Classified as a Pre-Existing Policy by Vetted Causes
Vetted Causes’ analysis is incorrect, and Sinergia Animal provides further clarification below. - JBS – Teeth Clipping: Classified as a Practice Already Illegal by Vetted Causes
Vetted Causes’ analysis is incorrect, and Sinergia Animal provides further clarification below. - Aurora: Classified as a Pre-Existing Policy by Vetted Causes
Vetted Causes’ analysis is incorrect, and Sinergia Animal provides further clarification below. - BRF: Pre-Existing Policy Presented as a New Commitment, According to Vetted Causes
Vetted Causes’ analysis is incorrect, and Sinergia Animal provides further clarification below. - Female Piglet Surgical Castration: Alleged Contradiction by Vetted Causes
There is no contradiction, and Sinergia Animal provides further clarification below.
1. JBS Ear Notching - Non-existent commitment, according to Vetted Causes
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
Sinergia already explained this is a valid commitment and Vetted Causes was mistaken to classify it as a non-existing commitment. We acknowledge and regret the deadline error in our spreadsheet shared with ACE. As we have stated, this was not an attempt to misrepresent data or inflate our impact, as implied by Vetted Causes. All metrics were calculated in good faith.
2. JBS Gestation Crates - Pre-existing Policy Presented As a New Commitment, according to Vetted Causes
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
Vetted Causes' claim that this policy existed prior to 2023 is incorrect. This conclusion overlooks essential context and suggests a limited understanding of how animal protection NGOs secure and validate corporate animal welfare commitments. The work of influencing corporate policy is highly nuanced and requires a deep familiarity with internal processes, negotiations, and criteria for valid policies—knowledge that appears to be missing in Vetted Causes’ analysis.
We are particularly concerned by Vetted Causes’ ongoing refusal to clarify whether their evaluations are informed by professionals with expertise in securing animal welfare commitments from major corporations. When we asked if such specialists were consulted, Vetted Causes stated that this information is confidential.
An organization that positions itself as a charity evaluator has a responsibility to operate with transparency—especially when making public assessments that can affect the credibility of nonprofits. The identities of specialists consulted should not be withheld.
Failing to engage relevant experts not only undermines the accuracy of the reviews but also wastes the time of the broader community who rely on these evaluations for reliable guidance. We strongly urge Vetted Causes to adopt more rigorous standards of transparency and expertise in order to provide fair and constructive assessments.
Vetted Causes is also omitting important information on this topic. This is what Sinergia said about this topic when it previously replied to Vetted Causes:
“It is a misconception to think that securing a policy necessarily requires numerous meetings, or a certain number of meetings. Many other factors are highly significant, such as how important the company considers animal welfare to be, long-term engagement with NGOs, and the NGO being well known as an organization that works with mobilization tactics. Additionally, when NGO communications explain the potential for either negative or positive brand exposure (such as the case of the Pigs in Focus program) they can be particularly effective.”
We regret that Vetted Causes appears to place disproportionate weight on the number of meetings as the primary indicator of a charity's ability to influence policy. This view is mistaken and overlooks the complexity of policy advocacy.
History behind the validation of JBS’s official policy
Sinergia started engaging with JBS and asking them to move towards the cobre e solta system in June 2020. JBS began discussing the implementation of the "cobre e solta" (pre-implantation) system in new facilities publicly in March 2021—first in a media article and later in a report published in 2021 and again in 2022. However, in none of these mentions did the company make it clear that this was a permanent commitment and 100% of the new facilities would adopt the "cobre e solta" system.
At the time, it was stated: “Currently, all our new projects follow the “cobre e solta” system. However, it was not made clear that this was a permanent company policy or a permanent commitment.
2021 Report:
“New projects adopt the ‘cobre e solta’ system, allowing the sows, after being artificially inseminated, to be housed in group housing.”
2022 Report:
“New projects adopt the ‘cobre e solta’ system, allowing the sows, after being artificially inseminated, to be housed in group housing.”
Just as Sinergia consistently demands clarity and precision in cage-free egg commitments—ensuring that corporate language confirms policies are permanent, comprehensive, not partial, and apply to all facilities or the full supply chain—we applied the same rigorous standards in our engagement with pig producing companies in Brazil. Specifically, Sinergia requested that JBS explicitly include terms such as “100%” and/or “all farms” in its statements, and that this language be published as a formal, ongoing commitment on its public animal welfare policy page.
This request was first fulfilled in August 2023, when the Seara webpage was updated to state:
“The ‘cobre e solta’ system is implemented in all new projects.”
Subsequently, in October 2023, JBS published a report stating:
“For new piglet production unit projects, the following are planned: 100% of gestation facilities will be climate-controlled, with “cobre e solta” (pre-implantation) management.”
It is critical to note that JBS had the opportunity to review its evaluation in the Pigs in Focus report.
This process and its benchmarks were thoroughly deliberated by our team, including what should or should not be classified as a valid commitment. We made a conscious decision to uphold high standards—especially for large corporations ranked at Pigs In Focus, which have the resources to establish clear, permanent, and transparent animal welfare policies. These policies must also be published with proper visibility on official web pages and reports.
It would have been easier and more expedient for Sinergia to accept vague statements from media articles or loosely worded references in corporate reports. Doing so could have even provided strategic advantages: for example, by including a weak policy claim in Pigs in Focus 2022, we might have encouraged other companies to follow suit. But we made a deliberate choice to prioritize accountability and real impact over publicity or credit.
Our commitment is to drive authentic progress for animals, not to artificially inflate achievements. That’s why we only recognize fully established and well-documented policies—because those have the greatest potential to create lasting, systemic change.
It’s also important to address a factual error made by Vetted Causes in its first article. That article stated:
“However, the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS's website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point.”
This shows that Vetted Causes originally misattributed the policy in question, suggesting that Sinergia took credit for JBS’s existing 2015 group housing policy, rather than for the pre-implantation ‘cobre e solta’ policy, which is the correct focus. It appears Vetted Causes later conducted additional research and shifted its argument—rather than acknowledging this initial mistake.
3. Teeth Clipping - Practice Was Already Illegal Prior to Alleged Commitments, according to Vetted Causes
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
Vetted Causes’ analysis is inaccurate and reflects a clear lack of local expertise and contextual understanding. Sinergia directly asked Vetted Causes: “Have you consulted any Brazilian specialists regarding inspections, enforcement, or sanctions related to violations of animal welfare legislation or the pig welfare normative?” Their response was that they could not confirm or deny this, as this information is confidential. In this case, a failure to engage local knowledge has likely led to flawed conclusions and misinformed readers. Please also note that Vetted Causes did not provide any real example of an administrative sanction being applied under the norms of the N113 normative.
However, based on the information available to Sinergia—provided by local country specialists—we maintain our original assessment: that Normative Instruction 113 is not being effectively inspected or enforced in practice. Given the contextual challenges we have already outlined, including systemic issues in regulatory oversight, we believe it is unlikely that violations of this normative currently result in meaningful sanctions.
We must be realistic: enforcement does not happen automatically just because a normative/policy exists. Even in the European Union, civil society organizations have had to campaign relentlessly over the years to pressure governments to uphold and enforce animal welfare legislation. Brazil is unlikely to be an exception. It is a serious mistake of Vetted Causes to assume that the mere existence of a normative in Brazil ensures its effectiveness or immediate impact.
It is also important to clarify that Sinergia Animal did not, at any point, discourage ACE from considering IN 113 as a basis for assessing legal deadlines, for the following reason:
Lack of enforcement mechanisms: At present, neither Sinergia nor the broader movement has a successful program specifically aimed at ensuring the enforcement of IN 113. This does not mean we underestimate its importance or potential—but rather, we acknowledge its current limitations. We are beginning public policy work in Brazil in 2025, with the aim of driving long-term impact. One of our central goals is to help transform IN 113 into binding legislation and to further strengthen it by 2045. So, we think it makes sense for ACE to work with the 2030 and 2045 normative deadlines. While the outcomes of this advocacy remain to be seen, we hope our efforts will make the normative recommendations better and more meaningful and enforceable over time.
4. Aurora - Pre-Existing Policy Presented as a New Commitment, According to Vetted Causes
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
Vetted Causes’ assessment is mistaken.
The claim that Aurora had a formal and exclusive immunocastration policy prior to 2023 does not align with the timeline of documented changes to the company’s website. On October 24, 2022, Aurora’s webpage underwent two rapid edits, according to Web Archive.
The first edit, at 16:44, introduced the phrase cited by Vetted Causes: “The Cooperative only chooses to adopt immunocastration, as it is a less invasive practice.” However, this version was online for just one minute (if Web Archive is right). At 16:45, the page was edited again, and that second version—which does not contain the language cited by Vetted Causes—is the one that remained publicly available and is the one we referenced in Sinergia’s 2022 Pigs in Focus report.
This shows that the wording presented by Vetted Causes did not reflect the final or stable version of the company's communications at the time. Therefore, our reporting was not based on incomplete or misleading information.
Moreover, the Pigs in Focus report was shared with Aurora Coop ahead of publication in 2022, as was done with all companies featured in the evaluation.
If Aurora had already made this transition earlier, it would have been in our interest to highlight such a progressive policy in the 2022 edition of Pigs in Focus. We are committed to promoting genuine advances in animal welfare. Recognizing an early, strong commitment would have not only benefited Aurora’s ranking, but also encouraged peer companies to follow suit.
Please note that Sinergia believes the appearance of the phrase “The Cooperative only chooses to adopt immunocastration, as it is a less invasive practice” on Aurora’s website in a Web Archive snapshot from October 2022 at 16:44 could due to a technical error of the website. Our communications indicate that this wording was only adopted by Aurora in 2023.
5. BRF - Pre-Existing Policy Presented as a New Commitment, According to Vetted Causes
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
Sinergia Animal appreciates that Vetted Causes has acknowledged its earlier error and recognized that this policy was, in fact, successfully secured in 2023.
About the number of sows, the total number of sows reflected in the spreadsheet corresponds to the full scope of BRF’s public commitment to eliminate gestation crates—encompassing our work to enforce the group housing (2014 commitment) and pre-implantation systems (2023 commitment). Our impact estimation reflected this broader policy shift, which BRF has made public and which Sinergia continues to monitor and help enforce. Additionally, the current 5% is likely to increase in future years.
Having said that, we do welcome the concern of separating our impact numbers into: 1) new commitments and 2) commitments being enforced. We will work on this later this year and will be happy to share it with the community when we find a good solution for it.
6. Female Piglets Surgical Castration
SINERGIA’S RESPONSE:
There is no contradiction and Vetted Causes seems to be omitting information. Sinergia said estimations are still correct because AIM's SADs calculations already took into "prevalence" of castration (taking out female piglets) but the latter [number of piglets affected] was stated incorrectly because they didn't include the same discount. In other words: Sinergia never said the number of piglets was correct. It was an unintentional mistake of Sinergia’s team to leave all piglets, and not only male piglets on the spreadsheet that estimates the number of animals. We failed to notice that when we provided and reviewed materials provided to ACE. We are committed to being more attentive and correcting this mistake in future estimations.
Hi @Vasco Grilo🔸 We spent approximately USD 80,000 in unrestricted funds on this program. However, we received over USD 100,000 in unrestricted donations this year because of this program—these donors likely would not have contributed if we had focused solely on cage-free initiatives. We believe it is fair and aligns well with our mission and theory of change.
It is always a pleasure to share more about our work.
Regarding prioritization: You can find details on how we allocate funding across programmatic areas in our financial statements. Our funding distribution varies from year to year, and different sources of funding also influences how resources are allocated—not just cost-effectiveness.
ACE has evaluated the cost-effectiveness of our three largest programs in terms of expenditures, and they explain their methodology in their review.
The animal protection movement includes many funders with diverse theories of change, and not all are guided solely by cost-effectiveness. We respect and appreciate these differing perspectives, as we believe this diversity encourages reflection and strengthens our movement. Ending factory farming is a highly complex challenge, and we recognize the importance of testing various interventions to drive progress.
As I mentioned earlier, the only portion of our unrestricted funding that supports our diet change work comes from donors who, while choosing to give unrestrictedly, have expressed that this program is their primary motivation for supporting us.
Dear @Vasco Grilo🔸
Thank you for following up on this. We sincerely appreciate your patience and interest in our work. Rest assured, we are constantly evaluating our impact and how to improve it
At Sinergia Animal, we welcome open discussions and constructive criticism of our work. Our main concern has been ensuring that any critiques avoid assumptions of bad faith or misrepresentation without giving us the opportunity to provide context.
Regarding your question, we want to emphasize that we have reflected extensively on our prioritization of resources, including by considering your own analysis. This is an area of constant strategic consideration for us.
It is important to clarify that our meal replacement (diet-change) program is funded through restricted donations—meaning the funds allocated to this initiative come from donors who would not otherwise contribute to our cage-free or pig welfare campaigns. Additionally, some of our general funding is influenced by the impact and mission of this program. For instance, in 2023, we secured approximately USD 162K in restricted funding specifically for our meal replacement work, and at least USD 100K in donations were influenced by the program’s objectives and results. These amounts combined exceeded the program’s total expenditures for the year.
Furthermore, Sinergia Animal’s mission is to end factory farming and promote a future where animals are no longer exploited for food—or at the very least, significantly reduce the number of animals suffering in industrial farming. The meal replacement program is a key component of this mission and is strongly supported by our community of animal protection activists, who contribute vital mobilization and movement-building support, even if not financially. In short, when it comes to impact, we believe that cost effectiveness estimates per dollar do not tell the full story.
For a more detailed explanation of the program’s strategic importance, you can refer to the ACE review, which outlines our Theory of Change.
We truly appreciate your engagement and your interest in our work.
Sinergia's response:
Although the author thanks us for our feedback in the article, we do not agree that this was done accordingly.
Sinergia appreciates the transparency regarding the involvement with Vetted Causes for the research done to produce this article and is partially glad that a Portuguese speaker was later involved. However, we remain concerned that the author, not being Brazilian and seemingly failing to consult Brazilian experts, repetitively overlooked important local context and industry knowledge — as already explained in previous responses provided by Sinergia.
It has been a tiring experience to have to explain more than once that the cited normative instruction is not an enforced law in Brazil to see some changes later implemented in the text. At the final stages, we were requested to assist in identifying experts to check this text’s assumptions. This approach is unproductive and harms organizations aiming to work effectively. Moving forward, such processes must be conducted differently, with genuine respect for local expertise and proper consultation from the outset.
Regarding Alibem, Sinergia Animal and many other NGOs only consider a corporate policy valid once it becomes public, transparent, and verifiable. If Alibem had indeed adopted certain practices earlier, the formal and public commitment to them only occurred after Sinergia’s engagement through Pigs In Focus. A proof of this is that in 2022, Alibem didn’t report any public or permanent animal welfare policies during consultation for the publication of Pigs in Focus. Hidden or informal policies cannot be considered progress until they are publicly announced and open to scrutiny.
The article also neglects to recognize a well-established and effective advocacy tactic: publicly ranking companies. Such rankings foster competition among companies, encouraging them to avoid negative public perception and prompting the adoption of new welfare policies — often creating positive ripple effects across the industry. Initiatives such as Pigs in Focus have successfully demonstrated the effective impact of this approach. Securing new policies is not merely about sending campaign notices or running campaigns like the article suggests; a ranking in itself is a powerful pressure tactic that drives measurable change.
We also regret the disrespectful tone and sensationalism that have characterized most parts of this unethical process initiated by Vetted Causes. Fortunately, our long-term supporters — who are familiar with our rigorous programs and their tactics and have witnessed the tangible impact of our work for pigs in Brazil — have also followed this process closely and still trust our integrity and seriousness.
Sinergia is always open to accepting adjustments to our cost-effectiveness assessment if such revisions were conducted through ethical, professional, and contextually grounded analysis–instead of the approach adopted so far as described in the previous paragraph.
For these reasons, we have preferred and are likely to keep opting not to engage with all comments and posts on this forum if they involve sensationalism, unethical behavior and incomplete and unproductive methods of research. We are committed to focusing our time and energy on continuing our important work rather than fueling unprofessional and unbalanced debates.