New study investigates sustainability risks to vegetable oils

A new study by an international research team looked into the sustainability profiles of three major vegetable oils – palm oil from Malaysia, soyabean oil from Brazil and rapeseed oil from Germany, PhysOrg wrote. Co-ordinated by Wageningen University & Research alongside IPB University (Indonesia) and Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, the study assessed the contribution the three oils made towards achieving the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2040, the 4 August report said. In addition to assessing the oils’ current sustainability performance, the study also looked at their future performance under business-as-usual and ambitious scenarios. In these scenarios, the researchers evaluated six key sustainability aspects: land use efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity impacts, pollution effects, livelihood contributions and economic performance. The researchers found that palm oil was the most land-efficient oil crop, ...