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More sustainable vegetable oil: Balancing productivity with carbon storage opportunities

Alcock, Thomas D.; Salt, David E.; Wilson, Paul; Ramsden, Stephen J.

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Authors

Thomas D. Alcock

David E. Salt

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PAUL WILSON PAUL.WILSON@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Professor of Agricultural Economics

Stephen J. Ramsden



Abstract

Intensive cultivation and post-harvest vegetable oil production stages are major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Variation between production systems and reporting disparity have resulted in discordance in previous emissions estimates. The aim of this study was to assess global systems-wide variation in GHG emissions resulting from palm, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil production. Such an analysis is critical to understand the implications of meeting increasing edible oil demand. To achieve this, we performed a unified re-analysis of life cycle input data from diverse palm, soybean, rapeseed, and sunflower oil production systems, from a saturating search of published literature. The resulting dataset reflects almost 6000 producers in 38 countries, and is representative of over 71% of global vegetable oil production. Across all oil crop systems, median GHG emissions were 3.81 kg CO2e per kg refined oil. Crop specific median emissions ranged from 2.49 kg CO2e for rapeseed oil to 4.25 kg CO2e for soybean oil per kg refined oil. Determination of the carbon cost of agricultural land occupation revealed that carbon storage potential in native compared to agricultural land cover drives variation in production GHG emissions, and indicates that expansion of production in low carbon storage potential land, whilst reforesting areas of high carbon storage potential, could reduce net GHG emissions whilst boosting productivity. Nevertheless, there remains considerable scope to improve sustainability within current production systems, including through increasing yields whilst limiting application of inputs with high carbon footprints, and in the case of palm oil through more widespread adoption of methane capture technologies in processing stages.

Citation

Alcock, T. D., Salt, D. E., Wilson, P., & Ramsden, S. J. (2022). More sustainable vegetable oil: Balancing productivity with carbon storage opportunities. Science of the Total Environment, 829, Article 154539. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154539

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 8, 2022
Online Publication Date Mar 19, 2022
Publication Date Jul 10, 2022
Deposit Date Mar 23, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Science of the Total Environment
Print ISSN 0048-9697
Electronic ISSN 1879-1026
Publisher Elsevier BV
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 829
Article Number 154539
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154539
Keywords Pollution; Waste Management and Disposal; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Engineering
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7646324
Publisher URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722016321?via%3Dihub

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