Saving Tropical Forests by Knowing What We Consume

Giam, Xingli; Mani, Letchumi; Koh, Lian Pin; Tan, Hugh Tiang Wah

doi:10.1111/conl.12209

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The low cost of palm oil makes it one of the most challenging terrestrial crop oils to replace, this is even with an up to 10% estimated price uplift on consumer willingness to pay for a guaranteed deforestation-free product [86]. Processing changes that had the most substantial change to cost were the removal of extraction steps on downstream processing through extracellular lipid production, and the valorisation of a co-product priced >$1/kg reduced the minimum selling price of the lipid to $0 /kg.…”

Section: Implications Of This Study On Palm Oil Replacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Techno-Economic Modelling to Determine the Minimum Cost Possible for a Microbial Palm Oil Substitute

Karamerou

Parsons

McManus

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Palm oil is the most commonly used crop oil worldwide, and is used predominantly for food, in the chemical industry and for biofuels. It is mainly cultivated in areas with biodiverse and carbon-rich rainforest which has given rise to large increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and significant impacts to biodiversity. There is therefore substantial interest in finding an alternative to palm oil. Heterotrophic single cell oils (SCOs) are one potential replacement as these are able to mimic the lipid profile of palm oil in a way that other terrestrial and exotic crop oils cannot. But, despite a large experimental research effort in this area, there are only a handful of techno-economic modelling publications. As such, there is little understanding of whether SCOs are, or could ever be, a potential competitive replacement to palm oil. To help address this question we designed a detailed model that coupled a hypothetical heterotroph (using the very best possible biological lipid production) with the largest and most efficient chemical plant design possible. Results Our base case gave a lipid selling price of $2.01 / kg for ~8,000 tonnes / year production, that could be reduced to $1.54 /kg on increasing production to ~48,000 tonnes of lipid a year. A range of scenarios to further reduce this cost were then assessed, including using a thermotolerant strain (reducing the cost from $1.54 /kg to $1.47 /kg), zero cost electricity ($ 1.48/kg), using non-sterile conditions ($1.05 / kg), wet extraction of lipids ($1.48 / kg), continuous production of extracellular lipid ($0.76 /kg) and selling the whole yeast cell, including recovering value for the protein and carbohydrate ($1.14 /kg). If co-products were produced alongside the lipid then the price could be effectively reduced to $0, depending on the amount of carbon funnelled away from lipid production, as long as the co-product could be sold in excess of $1/kg. Conclusions The model presented here represents an ideal case that which while not achievable in reality, importantly would not be able to be improved on, irrespective of the scientific advances in this area. From the scenarios explored, however, it should still be possible to produce lower cost SCOs, but research must start to be applied in three key areas, firstly designing products where the whole cell is used, displacing products that contain palm oil rather than attempting to produce an exact refined palm oil substitute. Secondly, further work on the product systems that produce lipids extracellularly in a continuous processing methodology or finally that create an effective biorefinery designed to produce a low molecular weight, bulk chemical, alongside the lipid. All other research areas will only ever give incremental gains rather than leading towards an economically competitive, sustainable, microbial oil.

show abstract

Section: Implications Of This Study On Palm Oil Replacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Techno-Economic Modelling to Determine the Minimum Cost Possible for a Microbial Palm Oil Substitute

Karamerou

Parsons

McManus

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast to other conservation behaviours such as recycling or saving electricity, many consumers may not know that they can benefit the environment by reducing the amount of palm oil they consume. For example, most consumers surveyed by Giam et al (2016) did not seem to identify palm oil as a product that may cause deforestation (cf., Ostfeld et al 2019). However, when consumers are given information on the environmental consequences of palm oil, their knowledge about the issue appears to increase along with their support for mandatory palm oil labelling (Pearson et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of consumer knowledge in reducing the demand for palm oil

Lange

Coremans

2020

Envir. Conserv.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummaryAttempts to mitigate the environmental impact of oil-palm expansion by improving production standards have been of limited success. An alternative approach aims at a better understanding of the factors that drive consumers to reduce excessive vegetable oil consumption. Our studies focused on consumers’ environmental knowledge as a potential determinant of palm oil consumption. They revealed critical limitations in consumers’ palm oil-related knowledge across different domains, study settings and assessment approaches. The more our participants knew about palm oil and its environmental consequences, the stronger were their reported intentions to reduce their consumption. This relationship was significantly stronger for subjective versus objective palm oil-related knowledge. In addition, we examined whether consumers can be stimulated to consult information about palm oil by making information access the default option. While this simple situational nudge promoted information access, we did not find it to significantly increase actual engagement with the information material. This result suggests that it might be necessary to complement default nudges for information access with other measures to enhance palm oil-related knowledge and to reduce palm oil consumption to more sustainable levels.

show abstract

“…Similar to an online survey on community attitudes towards flying foxes in Australia (Kung et al 2015 ), male respondents were more likely to have a negative attitude towards flying foxes (Table 1A ). Kellert and Berry’s ( 1987 ) seminal study of American adults throughout the United States also found gender one of the most important demographic factors influencing attitudes towards wildlife and conservation, as have subsequent studies (e.g., Rauwald and Moore 2002 ; Dougherty et al 2003 ; Bjerke and Østdahl 2004 ; Miller and Jones 2006 ; Giam et al 2015 ; Koziarski et al 2016 ; Reid 2016 ). Our findings are consistent with this trend.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Coexistence and Conflict between the Island Flying fox (Pteropus hypomelanus) and Humans on Tioman Island, Peninsular Malaysia

Aziz¹,

Clements

Giam

et al. 2017

Hum Ecol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As tropical landscapes become increasingly human-dominated, conflicts between people and wildlife threaten ecological processes. Old World fruit bats such as flying foxes are especially susceptible to extinction risk because there is low interest in their conservation, particularly when they are considered pests. In order to arrest fruit bat declines, there is an urgent need to understand human-bat conflict and its implications. On a tropical island in Peninsular Malaysia, we conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate coexistence between people and the island flying fox (Pteropus hypomelanus). Among 119 respondents, knowledge of ecosystem services provided by flying foxes was extremely low. Most respondents held negative attitudes towards the bats, and older male locals were more likely to support killing them. This was also true for older owners of fruit trees who derived income from selling fruit, and experienced flying fox raids. Our results can be used to design appropriate interventions to support conservation efforts, and has important implications for managing conflicts between humans and synanthropic wildlife.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10745-017-9905-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Saving Tropical Forests by Knowing What We Consume

Cited by 25 publications

References 28 publications

Using Techno-Economic Modelling to Determine the Minimum Cost Possible for a Microbial Palm Oil Substitute

Using Techno-Economic Modelling to Determine the Minimum Cost Possible for a Microbial Palm Oil Substitute

The role of consumer knowledge in reducing the demand for palm oil

Coexistence and Conflict between the Island Flying fox (Pteropus hypomelanus) and Humans on Tioman Island, Peninsular Malaysia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About