Devon, South West England, United Kingdom: Researchers claim that the production of coconut oil can be harmful to the environment. It can cause more damage, threatening more species per ton produced than palm or any other vegetable oil production.
The harm caused by coconut oil production is higher than other oil-producing crops, such as palm (3.8 species per million tons), olive (4.1), and soybean (1.3).
Impact on threatened species is usually measured by the number of species affected per square hectare of land used - and by this measure palm's impact is worse than coconut.
The researchers use this example to highlight the difficulties of "conscientious consumption".
"They say consumers lack objective guidance on the environmental impacts of crop production, undermining their ability to make informed decisions. The outcome of our study came as a surprise," said lead author Erik Meijaard, of Borneo Futures in Brunei Darussalam. "Many consumers in the West think of coconut products as both healthy and their production relatively harmless for the environment. "As it turns out, we need to think again about the impacts of coconut."
Co-author Dr Jesse F. Abrams, of the Global Systems Institute and the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, both at the University of Exeter, added: "Consumers, especially those striving to be more responsible in their consumption, rely heavily on information that they receive from the media, which is often supplied by those with a vested interest
The authors, however, emphasize that the objective of the study is not to add coconut to the growing list of products that consumers should avoid.
Indeed, they note that olives and other crops raise also raise concerns. Co-author Professor Douglas Sheil, of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, said: "Consumers need to realize that all our agricultural commodities, and not just tropical crops, have negative environmental impacts."
