Towards sustainable palm oil production: The positive and negative impacts on ecosystem services and human wellbeing
Towards sustainable palm oil production: The positive and negative impacts on ecosystem services and human wellbeing
Palm oil is an important commodity contributing to livelihoods of many communities, GDP of governments and the achievement of several sustainable development goals (SDG) including no poverty, zero hunger, and decent work and economic growth. However, its cultivation and continuous expansion due to high and increasing demand has led to many negative effects and subsequent calls to make production sustainable. To this end, information is needed to understand the negative and positive impacts on both the environment and human wellbeing to respond appropriately. Sustainability in palm oil trade entails having a global supply chain based on environmentally friendly and socially acceptable production and sourcing. Much has been done in understanding and responding to impacts on the environment but not so much on social impacts partly due to a lack of information. The direct (socio-economic) and indirect (through ecosystem services) impacts of palm oil trade were reviewed using peer-reviewed literature and the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJA). Our results show that most of the 57 case studies were conducted in Indonesia and Malaysia where 85% of global production of palm oil occurs. The results show both negative (109) and positive (99) direct impacts on humans. Indirect impacts through ecosystems services were predominantly negative (116) as were the direct negative impacts. The most frequently studied direct negative impacts were conflicts (25%), housing conditions (18%) and land grabbing (16%) while the most frequently studied direct positive impacts were income generation (33%) and employment (19%). Ongoing initiatives to make the palm oil sector sustainable such as the RSPO are focused on the environment but need to pay more attention to (related) social impacts. To make palm oil production sustainable and to meet SDGs such as ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing as well as responsible consumption and production, negative social impacts of palm oil trade need to be addressed.
Ecosystem services, Human wellbeing, Palm oil certification, Socio-economic impacts, Sustainability, Sustainable development goals
Ayompe, Lacour M.
8c157c8f-b29b-4559-afb9-761788418da1
Schaafsma, M.
937ac629-0fa2-4a11-bdf7-c3688405467d
Egoh, Benis N.
c9083fd0-ab04-4167-8409-183e9f65d20c
1 January 2021
Ayompe, Lacour M.
8c157c8f-b29b-4559-afb9-761788418da1
Schaafsma, M.
937ac629-0fa2-4a11-bdf7-c3688405467d
Egoh, Benis N.
c9083fd0-ab04-4167-8409-183e9f65d20c
Ayompe, Lacour M., Schaafsma, M. and Egoh, Benis N.
(2021)
Towards sustainable palm oil production: The positive and negative impacts on ecosystem services and human wellbeing.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 278, [123914].
(doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123914).
Abstract
Palm oil is an important commodity contributing to livelihoods of many communities, GDP of governments and the achievement of several sustainable development goals (SDG) including no poverty, zero hunger, and decent work and economic growth. However, its cultivation and continuous expansion due to high and increasing demand has led to many negative effects and subsequent calls to make production sustainable. To this end, information is needed to understand the negative and positive impacts on both the environment and human wellbeing to respond appropriately. Sustainability in palm oil trade entails having a global supply chain based on environmentally friendly and socially acceptable production and sourcing. Much has been done in understanding and responding to impacts on the environment but not so much on social impacts partly due to a lack of information. The direct (socio-economic) and indirect (through ecosystem services) impacts of palm oil trade were reviewed using peer-reviewed literature and the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJA). Our results show that most of the 57 case studies were conducted in Indonesia and Malaysia where 85% of global production of palm oil occurs. The results show both negative (109) and positive (99) direct impacts on humans. Indirect impacts through ecosystems services were predominantly negative (116) as were the direct negative impacts. The most frequently studied direct negative impacts were conflicts (25%), housing conditions (18%) and land grabbing (16%) while the most frequently studied direct positive impacts were income generation (33%) and employment (19%). Ongoing initiatives to make the palm oil sector sustainable such as the RSPO are focused on the environment but need to pay more attention to (related) social impacts. To make palm oil production sustainable and to meet SDGs such as ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing as well as responsible consumption and production, negative social impacts of palm oil trade need to be addressed.
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Published date: 1 January 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Two sources of information were used in this review to understand palm oil trade impacts on human wellbeing through case studies of direct (socio-economic) and indirect (through ecosystem services). Our first source of information was from peer-reviewed literature (Web of Science) to look for papers that used primary data to assess the impacts of palm oil trade on human wellbeing. Although many studies on palm oil trade are conducted by NGOs such as the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), we did not include all grey literature but used only the Environmental Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/), a source of grey literature to compare our results on the negative impacts of palm oil trade on human wellbeing. A limitation of Environmental Justice Atlas (EJA) is that it only reports negative impacts.We acknowledge funding from the UK Research and Innovation's Global Challenges Research Fund (UKRI GCRF) through the Trade, Development and the Environment Hub project (project number ES/S008160/1).
Funding Information:
We acknowledge funding from the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund ( UKRI GCRF ) through the Trade, Development and the Environment Hub project (project number ES / S008160/1 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Ecosystem services, Human wellbeing, Palm oil certification, Socio-economic impacts, Sustainability, Sustainable development goals
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 449716
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449716
ISSN: 0959-6526
PURE UUID: c8c62ef8-d219-4011-82c2-dfc6f7f5c8fe
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Date deposited: 11 Jun 2021 16:32
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:30
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Contributors
Author:
Lacour M. Ayompe
Author:
Benis N. Egoh
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