Landscape-Scale Biodiversity Impacts Analysis of Côte d'Ivoire's Cocoa Cultivation along Export Supply Chains.

Agricultural land use for export commodities leads to significant biodiversity impacts. A spatially detailed assessment of these impacts is crucial for implementing effective mitigation policies. Using cocoa cultivation and exports in Côte d'Ivoire as an example, we present a novel framework that combines earth observations, enhanced landscape-scale biodiversity models, and subnational export supply chain data sets to track the tele-connected potential biodiversity impacts of export groups and importing countries. We found that cocoa cultivation accounts for ∼44% of the biodiversity impacts in Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa cultivation areas, with >90% attributable to cocoa exports. The top 10 importing countries account for ∼84% of these impacts. Our method offers improved spatial detail compared to the existing approaches, facilitating the identification of biodiversity impact hotspots. Additionally, the biodiversity impacts of agroforestry cocoa are not always lower compared to full-sun cocoa, especially when agroforestry systems are established in regions of high biodiversity importance. Our transferable framework provides a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity footprint and promotes informed decision-making for sustainable agricultural production, processing, and trade. Our framework's application is currently constrained by the scarcity of detailed supply chain data sets; we underscore the urgent need for improved supply chain transparency to fully unlock the framework's potential.

Can Forest Management Practices Counteract Species Loss Arising from Increasing European Demand for Forest Biomass under Climate Mitigation Scenarios?

Forests are home to many species and provide biomass for material and energy. Here, we modeled the potential global species extinction risk from future scenarios of climate mitigation and EU28 forest management. We considered the continuation of current practices, the adoption of closer-to-nature management (low-intensity practices), and set-asides (conversion to unharvested forestland) on portions of EU28 forestland under two climate mitigation pathways as well as the consequences for the wood trade. Expanding set-aside to more than 25% of EU28 currently managed forestland by 2100 increased the global extinction risk compared to the continuation of current practices. This outcome stems from a projected increase in EU forest biomass imports, partially from biodiversity-vulnerable regions to compensate for a decrease in domestic harvest. Conversely, closer-to-nature management on up to 37.5% of EU28 forestland lowered extinction risks. Increasing the internal production and partially sourcing imported biomass from low-intensity managed areas lowered the species extinction footprint even further. However, low-intensity practices could not entirely compensate for the increased extinction risk under a high climate mitigation scenario with greater demand for lignocellulosic crops and energywood. When developing climate mitigation strategies, it is crucial to assess forest biomass supply chains for the early detection of extinction risks in non-EU regions and for developing strategies to prevent increase of global impacts.

Biodiversity Impact Assessment Considering Land Use Intensities and Fragmentation.

Land use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (GLAM) project, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by UN Environment aims to create a life cycle impact assessment method across multiple impact categories, including land use impacts on ecosystem quality represented by regional and global species richness. A working group of the GLAM project focused on such land use impacts and developed new characterization factors to combine the strengths of two separate recent advancements in the field: the consideration of land use intensities and land fragmentation. The data sets to parametrize the underlying model are also updated from previous models. The new characterization factors cover five species groups (plants, amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles) and five broad land use types (cropland, pasture, plantations, managed forests, and urban land) at three intensity levels (minimal, light, and intense). They are available at the level of terrestrial ecoregions and countries. This paper documents the development of the characterization factors, provides practical guidance for their use, and critically assesses the strengths and remaining shortcomings.

Hotspots of Mining-Related Biodiversity Loss in Global Supply Chains and the Potential for Reduction through Renewable Electricity.

Anticipated infrastructure growth and energy transition may exacerbate biodiversity loss through increased demand for mining products. This study uses an enhanced multiregional input-output database (REX, Resolved EXIOBASE) and supply chain impact mapping (SCIM) method to assess global biodiversity loss associated with mining-related land use. We identify hotspots in the supply chain of mining products, compare the impact of fossil and renewable electricity, and estimate the share of mining in total global impacts. We found that half of the global mining-related biodiversity loss occurs in Indonesia, Australia, and New Caledonia. Major international trade flows of embodied biodiversity loss involve Indonesia's coal exports to China and India, New Caledonia's nickel exports to Japan and Australia, and Australia's iron and bauxite exports to China. Key end-consumers include China's growing infrastructure and the EU's and USA's household consumption. Electricity generation accounted for 10% of global mining-related biodiversity loss in 2014. The impact of coal-fired electricity was 10 times higher than that of renewables per unit of electricity generated. Globally, mining contributes to less than 1% of the total land use-related biodiversity loss, which is dominated by agriculture. Our results provide transparency in sourcing more sustainable mining products and underline synergies in fostering renewables to meet local biodiversity and global climate targets.

Regionalized Life Cycle Inventories of Global Sulfidic Copper Tailings.

Worldwide, an issue of copper production is the generation of mine waste with varying characteristics. This waste can pollute natural environments, and in particular, the heavy metal emissions of the tailings may pose long-term consequences. Currently, life cycle assessments of mine tailings are hampered by both limited data availability in the metal production value chain and lack of appropriate methodologies. We collect data from 431 active copper mine sites using a combination of information available from the market research and technical handbooks to develop site-specific life cycle inventories for disposal of tailings. The approach considers the influences of copper ore composition and local hydrology for dynamically estimating leached metals of tailings at each site. The analysis reveals that together, copper tailings from the large (i.e., porphyry) and medium-size copper deposits (i.e., volcanogenic massive sulfide and sediment-hosted) contribute to more than three quarters of the total global freshwater ecotoxicity impacts of copper tailings. This strongly correlates with hydrological conditions, leading to high infiltration rates. The generated inventories vary locally, even within single countries, showcasing the importance of site-specific models. Our study provides site-specific, dynamic emission models and thus improves the accuracy of tailing's inventories and toxicity-related impacts.

Global Assessment of Agricultural Productivity Losses from Soil Compaction and Water Erosion.

To guide us toward a sustainable future, the impacts of human activities on natural resources need to be understood and quantified. In this study on global agriculture, we use a Life Cycle Assessment framework to estimate potential long-term soil productivity losses caused by soil compaction and water erosion due to agricultural crop production. We combine several data sets to model spatially resolved Life Cycle Inventory information at the global level and multiply results with characterization factors from a previous publication. The global picture shows a compaction-stressed "Global North" and an erosion-stressed "Global South", with some countries and regions in between, for example, China and parts of South America. Results show that both compaction and water erosion impacts matter at the global level and that overall potential long-term productivity losses of 10-20% can be expected, with high relative impacts on low input production systems. These losses might limit long-term agricultural productivity and lead to additional land use change. Our work adds to and extends the discussion of global assessments of soil degradation. Furthermore, we prove the suggested framework to be applicable and useful for Life Cycle Assessments and other studies and provide results that can be used in such global assessments.

Globally Regionalized Monthly Life Cycle Impact Assessment of Particulate Matter.

This work provides a globally regionalized approach for quantifying particulate matter (PM2.5) health impacts. Atmospheric transport and pollutant chemistry of primary particulate matter, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and ammonia (NH3) from stack emissions were modeled and used to calculate monthly high-resolution maps of global characterization factors that can be used for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and risk assessment. These characterization factors are applied to a global data set of coal power emissions. The results show large regional and temporal differences in health impacts per kg of emission and per amount of coal power generation (5-1300 DALY TWh-1). While small emission reductions of PM2.5 and SO2 from coal power lead to similar health benefits across densely populated areas of Asia and Europe, we find that larger emission reductions result in up to three times higher health benefits in parts of Asia because of the nonlinear health responses to pollution exposure changes. Hence, many regions in Asia benefit disproportionately much from large coal power PM2.5 and SO2 emission reductions. NOx emission reductions can lead to equally high health benefits, where unfavorable atmospheric conditions coincide with elevated NH3 background pollution and large population (e.g., in Central Europe, Indonesia, or Japan but also numerous other places).

Assessing Impacts on the Natural Resource Soil in Life Cycle Assessment: Methods for Compaction and Water Erosion.

There are currently limited life cycle impact assessment methods existing for assessing impacts on the natural resource soil. In this paper, we develop methods for the assessment of compaction and water erosion impacts within one framework, which can be expanded with additional degradation processes in the future. Our methods assess potential long-term impacts from agricultural activities on the production capacity of soils and are able to distinguish between different management choices such as machinery selection and tillage practices. Characterization factors are provided as global raster data sets at high spatial resolution (∼1 km) and for larger geographic units including uncertainties of spatial aggregation. Uncertainties due to variability of climate and weather are provided where possible. The application of the methods is demonstrated and discussed in a simplified case study. Results show that in a highly mechanized scenario of global agriculture without any conservation measures, long-term yearly soil productivity losses due to compaction and water erosion can amount to up to double-digit percentages for major crops. This confirms the relevance of compaction and water erosion impacts for agricultural LCAs.

Regional Carrying Capacities of Freshwater Consumption-Current Pressure and Its Sources.

Sustainable freshwater management is an essential target for sustainability. The concept of planetary boundaries evaluates whether the environmental loads from humans are within the carrying capacity of the environment at a global level, while the region-specific assessment of carrying capacities of freshwater consumption can complement the global-scale sustainability assessment by shedding light on regional sustainability. We show that 24% of the total freshwater consumption exceeds the regional carrying capacities based on spatially and temporally explicit analysis (monthly data for around 11 000 watersheds). Although 19% of the current total freshwater consumption is determined as "luxury consumption" beyond basic needs, approximately 60% of the exceedance is attributed to basic needs of freshwater for sustaining human life. International trade alleviates the overall pressure on carrying capacity by approximately 4.8% (18.9 billion m3) at a global level through virtual water trade; however, several producer countries demonstrate additional overconsumption beyond the regional carrying capacities, while importer countries that can do so mitigate overconsumption. Appropriate irrigation water management and the location of crop production are the keys to maintain our freshwater consumption levels within the regional carrying capacities on a global scale. However, measures that necessitate the consideration of watershed-specific environmental and economic conditions are desirable.

Improving water ecosystem sustainability of urban water system by management strategies optimization.

Water management strategies play an important role in water shortage alleviation. This study evaluates the cost and water ecosystem benefit of 14 water management strategies in Beijing in the future scenarios for 2020 and 2035. In addition, optimal implements of abatement strategies are obtained within the context of legislated targets, with the consideration of interaction among strategies. The result shows that Beijing can meet its commitments for total water use and pollution control by the water management strategies implementation in both 2020 and 2035. For 14 water management strategies analyzed in this study, 5 options with negative abatement cost value achieve 12.2-24.1% of the total water ecosystem benefit in 2020 and 2035. Wastewater reclamation is the most efficient strategy in water ecosystem impact (WEI) reduction, which contributes 38.4% of the total WEI reduction with an abatement cost of 1.6 Yuan/m3 H2O -eq. However, the sequence of optimal strategy implementation rate is not in accordance with the abatement cost of the strategies. The most cost-effective option is the water-efficient shower head, while the highest implementation rate is found for promotion of production technologies. A comparison between water management optimization with and without the consideration of interactions among strategies shows that taking the interaction among strategies into account imposes almost no influence on the total WEI reduction. But it has impacts on optimal implementation rate of each water management option and the cost estimation (+10.8%) of water management implementation. Such a systematic analysis of water management strategies provides general recommendations on sustainable water resource management in water scarce regions.

Would it be safe to have a dog in the MRI scanner before your own examination? A multicenter study to establish hygiene facts related to dogs and men.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether it would be hygienic to evaluate dogs and humans in the same MRI scanner. METHODS: We compared the bacterial load in colony-forming units (CFU) of human-pathogenic microorganisms in specimens taken from 18 men and 30 dogs. In addition, we compared the extent of bacterial contamination of an MRI scanner shared by dogs and humans with two other MRI scanners used exclusively by humans. RESULTS: Our study shows a significantly higher bacterial load in specimens taken from men's beards compared with dogs' fur (p = 0.036). All of the men (18/18) showed high microbial counts, whereas only 23/30 dogs had high microbial counts and 7 dogs moderate microbial counts. Furthermore, human-pathogenic microorganisms were more frequently found in human beards (7/18) than in dog fur (4/30), although this difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.074). More microbes were found in human oral cavities than in dog oral cavities (p < 0.001). After MRI of dogs, routine scanner disinfection was undertaken and the CFU found in specimens isolated from the MRI scanning table and receiver coils showed significantly lower bacteria count compared with "human" MRI scanners (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Our study shows that bearded men harbour significantly higher burden of microbes and more human-pathogenic strains than dogs. As the MRI scanner used for both dogs and humans was routinely cleaned after animal scanning, there was substantially lower bacterial load compared with scanners used exclusively for humans. KEY POINTS: • Bearded men harbour significantly more microbes than dogs. • Dogs are no risk to humans if they use the same MRI. • Deficits in hospital hygiene are a relevant risk for patients.

Overview and recommendations for regionalized life cycle impact assessment.

PURPOSE: Regionalized life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) has rapidly developed in the past decade, though its widespread application, robustness, and validity still faces multiple challenges. Under the umbrella of UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, a dedicated cross-cutting working group on regionalized LCIA aims to provides an overview of the status of regionalization in LCIA methods. We give guidance and recommendations to harmonize and support regionalization in LCIA for developers of LCIA methods, LCI databases, and LCA software. METHOD: A survey of current practice among regionalized LCIA method developers was conducted. The survey included questions on chosen method spatial resolution and scale, the spatial resolution of input parameters, choice of native spatial resolution and limitations, operationalization and alignment with life cycle inventory data, methods for spatial aggregation, the assessment of uncertainty from input parameters and model structure, and variability due to spatial aggregation. Recommendations are formulated based on the survey results and extensive discussion by the authors. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Survey results indicate that majority of regionalized LCIA models have global coverage. Native spatial resolutions are generally chosen based on the availability of global input data. Annual modelled or measured elementary flow quantities are mostly used for aggregating characterization factors (CFs) to larger spatial scales, although some use proxies, such as population counts. Aggregated CFs are mostly available at the country level. Although uncertainty due to input parameter, model structure, and spatial aggregation are available for some LCIA methods, they are rarely implemented for LCA studies. So far, there is no agreement if a finer native spatial resolution is the best way to reduce overall uncertainty. When spatially differentiated models CFs are not easily available, archetype models are sometimes developed. CONCLUSIONS: Regionalized LCIA methods should be provided as a transparent and consistent set of data and metadata using standardized data formats. Regionalized CFs should include both uncertainty and variability. In addition to the native-scale CFs, aggregated CFs should always be provided, and should be calculated as the weighted averages of constituent CFs using annual flow quantities as weights whenever available. This paper is an important step forward for increasing transparency, consistency and robustness in the development and application of regionalized LCIA methods.

Defining freshwater as a natural resource: A framework linking water use to the area of protection natural resources.

PURPOSE: While many examples have shown unsustainable use of freshwater resources, existing LCIA methods for water use do not comprehensively address impacts to natural resources for future generations. This framework aims to (1) define freshwater resource as an item to protect within the Area of Protection (AoP) natural resources, (2) identify relevant impact pathways affecting freshwater resources, and (3) outline methodological choices for impact characterization model development. METHOD: Considering the current scope of the AoP natural resources, the complex nature of freshwater resources and its important dimensions to safeguard safe future supply, a definition of freshwater resource is proposed, including water quality aspects. In order to clearly define what is to be protected, the freshwater resource is put in perspective through the lens of the three main safeguard subjects defined by Dewulf et al. (2015). In addition, an extensive literature review identifies a wide range of possible impact pathways to freshwater resources, establishing the link between different inventory elementary flows (water consumption, emissions and land use) and their potential to cause long-term freshwater depletion or degradation. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Freshwater as a resource has a particular status in LCA resource assessment. First, it exists in the form of three types of resources: flow, fund, or stock. Then, in addition to being a resource for human economic activities (e.g. hydropower), it is above all a non-substitutable support for life that can be affected by both consumption (source function) and pollution (sink function). Therefore, both types of elementary flows (water consumption and emissions) should be linked to a damage indicator for freshwater as a resource. Land use is also identified as a potential stressor to freshwater resources by altering runoff, infiltration and erosion processes as well as evapotranspiration. It is suggested to use the concept of recovery period to operationalize this framework: when the recovery period lasts longer than a given period of time, impacts are considered to be irreversible and fall into the concern of freshwater resources protection (i.e. affecting future generations), while short-term impacts effect the AoP ecosystem quality and human health directly. It is shown that it is relevant to include this concept in the impact assessment stage in order to discriminate the long-term from the short-term impacts, as some dynamic fate models already do. CONCLUSION: This framework provides a solid basis for the consistent development of future LCIA methods for freshwater resources, thereby capturing the potential long-term impacts that could warn decision makers about potential safe water supply issues in the future.

A Multimedia Hydrological Fate Modeling Framework To Assess Water Consumption Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment.

Many new methods have recently been developed to address environmental consequences of water consumption in life cycle assessment (LCA). However, such methods can only partially be compared and combined, because their modeling structure and metrics are inconsistent. Moreover, they focus on specific water sources (e.g., river) and miss description of transport flows between water compartments (e.g., from river to atmosphere via evaporation) and regions (e.g., atmospheric advection). Consequently, they provide a partial regard of the local and global hydrological cycle and derived impacts on the environment. This paper proposes consensus-based guidelines for a harmonized development of the next generation of water consumption LCA indicators, with a focus on consequences of water consumption on ecosystem quality. To include the consideration of the multimedia water fate between compartments of the water cycle, we provide spatial regionalization and temporal specification guidance. The principles and recommendations of the paper are applied to an illustrative case study. The guidelines set the basis of a more accurate, novel way of modeling water consumption impacts in LCA. The environmental relevance of this LCA impact category will improve, yet much research is needed to make the guidelines operational.

Framework for integrating animal welfare into life cycle sustainability assessment.

PURPOSE: This study seeks to provide a framework for integrating animal welfare as a fourth pillar into a life cycle sustainability assessment and presents three alternative animal welfare indicators. METHODS: Animal welfare is assessed during farm life and during slaughter. The indicators differ in how they value premature death. All three consider (1) the life quality of an animal such as space allowance, (2) the slaughter age either as life duration or life fraction, and (3) the number of animals affected for providing a product unit, e.g. 1 Mcal. One of the indicators additionally takes into account a moral value denoting their intelligence and self-awareness. The framework allows for comparisons across studies and products and for applications at large spatial scales. To illustrate the framework, eight products were analysed and compared: beef, pork, poultry, milk, eggs, salmon, shrimps, and, as a novel protein source, insects. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Insects are granted to live longer fractions of their normal life spans, and their life quality is less compromised due to a lower assumed sentience. Still, they perform worst according to all three indicators, as their small body sizes only yield low product quantities. Therefore, we discourage from eating insects. In contrast, milk is the product that reduces animal welfare the least according to two of the three indicators and it performs relatively better than other animal products in most categories. The difference in animal welfare is mostly larger for different animal products than for different production systems of the same product. This implies that, besides less consumption of animal-based products, a shift to other animal products can significantly improve animal welfare. CONCLUSIONS: While the animal welfare assessment is simplified, it allows for a direct integration into life cycle sustainability assessment. There is a trade-off between applicability and indicator complexity, but even a simple estimate of animal welfare is much better than ignoring the issue, as is the common practice in life cycle sustainability assessments. Future research should be directed towards elaborating the life quality criterion and extending the product coverage.

Ecosystem quality in LCIA: status quo, harmonization, and suggestions for the way forward.

PURPOSE: Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results are used to assess potential environmental impacts of different products and services. As part of the UNEP-SETAC life cycle initiative flagship project that aims to harmonize indicators of potential environmental impacts, we provide a consensus viewpoint and recommendations for future developments in LCIA related to the ecosystem quality area of protection (AoP). Through our recommendations, we aim to encourage LCIA developments that improve the usefulness and global acceptability of LCIA results. METHODS: We analyze current ecosystem quality metrics and provide recommendations to the LCIA research community for achieving further developments towards comparable and more ecologically relevant metrics addressing ecosystem quality. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: We recommend that LCIA development for ecosystem quality should tend towards species-richnessrelated metrics, with efforts made towards improved inclusion of ecosystem complexity. Impact indicators-which result from a range of modeling approaches that differ, for example, according to spatial and temporal scale, taxonomic coverage, and whether the indicator produces a relative or absolute measure of loss-should be framed to facilitate their final expression in a single, aggregated metric. This would also improve comparability with other LCIA damage-level indicators. Furthermore, to allow for a broader inclusion of ecosystem quality perspectives, the development of an additional indicator related to ecosystem function is recommended. Having two complementary metrics would give a broader coverage of ecosystem attributes while remaining simple enough to enable an intuitive interpretation of the results. CONCLUSIONS: We call for the LCIA research community to make progress towards enabling harmonization of damage-level indicators within the ecosystem quality AoP and, further, to improve the ecological relevance of impact indicators.

Understanding the LCA and ISO water footprint: A response to Hoekstra (2016) "A critique on the water-scarcity weighted water footprint in LCA".

Water footprinting has emerged as an important approach to assess water use related effects from consumption of goods and services. Assessment methods are proposed by two different communities, the Water Footprint Network (WFN) and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community. The proposed methods are broadly similar and encompass both the computation of water use and its impacts, but differ in communication of a water footprint result. In this paper, we explain the role and goal of LCA and ISO-compatible water footprinting and resolve the six issues raised by Hoekstra (2016) in "A critique on the water-scarcity weighted water footprint in LCA". By clarifying the concerns, we identify both the overlapping goals in the WFN and LCA water footprint assessments and discrepancies between them. The main differing perspective between the WFN and LCA-based approach seems to relate to the fact that LCA aims to account for environmental impacts, while the WFN aims to account for water productivity of global fresh water as a limited resource. We conclude that there is potential to use synergies in research for the two approaches and highlight the need for proper declaration of the methods applied.

LCIA framework and cross-cutting issues guidance within the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.

Increasing needs for decision support and advances in scientific knowledge within life cycle assessment (LCA) led to substantial efforts to provide global guidance on environmental life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) indicators under the auspices of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. As part of these efforts, a dedicated task force focused on addressing several LCIA cross-cutting issues as aspects spanning several impact categories, including spatiotemporal aspects, reference states, normalization and weighting, and uncertainty assessment. Here, findings of the cross-cutting issues task force are presented along with an update of the existing UNEP-SETAC LCIA emission-to-damage framework. Specific recommendations are provided with respect to metrics for human health (Disability Adjusted Life Years, DALY) and ecosystem quality (Potentially Disappeared Fraction of species, PDF). Additionally, we stress the importance of transparent reporting of characterization models, reference states, and assumptions, in order to facilitate cross-comparison between chosen methods and indicators. We recommend developing spatially regionalized characterization models, whenever the nature of impacts shows spatial variability and related spatial data are available. Standard formats should be used for reporting spatially differentiated models, and choices regarding spatiotemporal scales should be clearly communicated. For normalization, we recommend using external normalization references. Over the next two years, the task force will continue its effort with a focus on providing guidance for LCA practitioners on how to use the UNEP-SETAC LCIA framework as well as for method developers on how to consistently extend and further improve this framework.

Global Biodiversity Loss by Freshwater Consumption and Eutrophication from Swiss Food Consumption.

We investigated water-related resource use, emissions and ecosystem impacts of food consumed in Switzerland. To do so, we coupled LCA methodologies on freshwater consumption, freshwater eutrophication and the consequent local and global biodiversity impacts with Swiss customs data and multiregional input-output analysis. Most of the resource use, emissions and impacts occur outside the national boundaries which illustrates the extent of environmental outsourcing facilitated by international trade. Countries that are severely affected by Swiss food consumption include Spain, the United States and Ecuador. Cocoa, coffee, and almonds stood out as products with high impacts. By identifying spatial hotspots and impactful products, awareness of policy-makers as well as individual consumers can be raised and efforts of detailed assessments can be streamlined. However, political and economic constraints and the resistance by individual consumers limit the high potential of changes in diets and trade relations to decrease the environmental impacts of food.

Spatially Explicit Analysis of Biodiversity Loss Due to Global Agriculture, Pasture and Forest Land Use from a Producer and Consumer Perspective.

Anthropogenic land use to produce commodities for human consumption is the major driver of global biodiversity loss. Synergistic collaboration between producers and consumers in needed to halt this trend. In this study, we calculate species loss on 5 min × 5 min grid level and per country due to global agriculture, pasture and forestry by combining high-resolution land use data with countryside species area relationship for mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Results show that pasture was the primary driver of biodiversity loss in Madagascar, China and Brazil, while forest land use contributed the most to species loss in DR Congo and Indonesia. Combined with the yield data, we quantified the biodiversity impacts of 1 m(3) of roundwood produced in 139 countries, concluding that tropical countries with low timber yield and a large presence of vulnerable species suffer the highest impact. We also calculated impacts per kg for 160 crops grown in different countries and linked it with FAO food trade data to assess the biodiversity impacts embodied in Swiss food imports. We found that more than 95% of Swiss consumption impacts rest abroad with cocoa, coffee and palm oil imports being responsible for majority of damage.