A method for calculating a land‐use change carbon footprint (LUC‐CFP) for agricultural commodities – applications to Brazilian beef and soy, Indonesian palm oil

Abstract

The world's agricultural system has come under increasing scrutiny recently as an important driver of global climate change, creating a demand for indicators that estimate the climatic impacts of agricultural commodities. Such carbon footprints, however, have in most cases excluded emissions from land-use change and the proposed methodologies for including this significant emissions source suffer from different shortcomings. Here, we propose a new methodology for calculating land-use change carbon footprints for agricultural commodities and illustrate this methodology by applying it to three of the most prominent agricultural commodities driving tropical deforestation: Brazilian beef and soybeans, and Indonesian palm oil. We estimate land-use change carbon footprints in 2010 to be 66 tCO2 /t meat (carcass weight) for Brazilian beef, 0.89 tCO2 /t for Brazilian soybeans, and 7.5 tCO2 /t for Indonesian palm oil, using a 10 year amortization period. The main advantage of the proposed methodology is its flexibility: it can be applied in a tiered approach, using detailed data where it is available while still allowing for estimation of footprints for a broad set of countries and agricultural commodities; it can be applied at different scales, estimating both national and subnational footprints; it can be adopted to account both for direct (proximate) and indirect drivers of land-use change. It is argued that with an increasing commercialization and globalization of the drivers of land-use change, the proposed carbon footprint methodology could help leverage the power needed to alter environmentally destructive land-use practices within the global agricultural system by providing a tool for assessing the environmental impacts of production, thereby informing consumers about the impacts of consumption and incentivizing producers to become more environmentally responsible.

Environmental impact of replacing soybean meal with rapeseed meal in diets of finishing pigs

“…We based this on the study by Prudêncio da Silva et al (2010). In the literature, however, the following assumptions were found: Van Middelaar et al (2013) used the same values; assumed that 100% of the soy expansion in Brazil directly occurs on forest land; Nemecek et al (in press) assumed that 12% of the soy produced in Central West Brazil comes from tropical forests and 38% comes from shrubland; Meul et al, (2012) assumed that 3% of the soy produced in Central West Brazil comes from tropical forests and 5% comes from shrubland; and Persson et al (2014) assumed that 2% of the soy produced in Central West Brazil comes from tropical forests and 12% comes from shrubland. Moreover, based on satellite data, it has been shown that, since 2006, deforestation rates in Brazil have decreased, and that since the late 2000s the contribution of soy production to deforestation has been minimal (i.e.…”

Estimating 20‐year land‐use change and derived CO2 emissions associated with crops, pasture and forestry in Brazil and each of its 27 states

“…Many studies focusing on LUC emissions associated with agricultural production in Brazil have been published recently. Nevertheless, these have focused either at the whole country level (Flynn et al., ; Persson, Henders, & Cederberg, ) or for specific Brazilian states and regions (Figueirêdo et al., , ; Macedo et al., ; Maciel et al., ). Initiatives to monitor LUC on a regular basis are very recent (e.g.…”

Trading Forests: Quantifying the Contribution of Global Commodity Markets to Emissions from Tropical Deforestation

“…On top of this comes increased demand for land to produce bioenergy and biofuels, driven by concerns for energy security and climate change. A successful long-term strategy for forest conservation therefore must contain, inter alia, elements of forest protection (i.e., raising the value of standing forests to counteract the increased profitability of clearing as land demand rises 23 ), measures to curb demand growth (e.g., inducing diet shifts away from animal products or limiting demand for bioenergy 24 ), and demand-side policies that aim to steer agricultural expansion away from sensitive ecosystems, such as natural forests.…”

“…11,26 Timber extraction from natural forests has been, and still is, a dominant driver of deforestation in Southeast Asia, but both shifting cultivation and plantation agriculture (e.g., rubber) have also played important roles. In recent years the latter, in the form of oil palm and short rotation timber plantations for pulp and paper production, have gained in importance as deforestation drivers, especially in Indonesia 24,29,30 .…”

“…The combined uncertainties in biomass densities of cleared forests and the share of deforestation attributed to different forest-risk commodities was estimated to lead to an overall uncertainty in deforestation footprints for Brazilian beef and Indonesian palm oil of just under 30%, with uncertainties for Brazilian soy being substantially lower 24 . Uncertainties for beef, soy and palm oil footprints calculated here are likely to be in the same range.…”