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Species Richness and Carbon Footprints of Vegetable Oils: Can High Yields Outweigh Palm Oil’s Environmental Impact?

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  • Robert Beyer

    (Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK)

  • Tim Rademacher

    (Harvard Forest, Harvard University, 324 Main Street, Petersham, MA 01366, USA
    Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, 1295 Knoles Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA)

Abstract

Palm oil has been widely criticised for its high environmental impacts, leading to calls to replace it with alternative vegetable oils in food and cosmetic products. However, substituting palm oil would be environmentally beneficial only if the environmental footprint per litre oil were lower than those of alternative vegetable oils. Whether this is the case is not obvious, given the high oil yields of oil palm of up to 10 times those of alternative crops. Here, we combine global agricultural and environmental datasets to show that, among the world’s seven major vegetable oil crops (oil palm, soybean, rapeseed, sunflower, groundnut, coconut, olive), oil palm has the lowest average species richness and carbon footprint associated with an annual production of one litre of vegetable oil. For each crop, these yield-adjusted footprints differ substantially between major producer countries, which we find to be largely the result of differences in crop management. Closing agricultural yield gaps of oil crops through improved management practices would significantly reduce the environmental footprints per oil yield. This would minimise the need for further land conversion to oil cropland and indeed could increase production to such an extent that a significant area of oil croplands could be ecologically restored.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Beyer & Tim Rademacher, 2021. "Species Richness and Carbon Footprints of Vegetable Oils: Can High Yields Outweigh Palm Oil’s Environmental Impact?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-10, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:1813-:d:495429
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Adesoji Adelaja & Justin George, 2021. "Food and Agricultural Security: An Introduction to the Special Issue," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-7, November.

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