Planting shady trees near cocoa crops could help make your chocolate carbon neutral

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-08-06 19:00

International; QLD

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Increasing the shade-tree cover around cocoa crops could be enough to offset all of the current cocoa-related emissions in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, according to Australian and international research. Cocoa has one of the highest carbon footprints of all foods, and the research found that increasing tree canopies to a minimum of 30% from their current average of 13% could offset ~167% of contemporary cocoa-related emissions across this West African region.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Sustainability

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Queensland, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Funder: This project received funding from the Lindt Cocoa Foundation (W.J.B.-H., S.P.H, J.D.W.); the 2019–2020 BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals under the BiodivClim ERA-Net COFUND programme, with the funding organization of the Swiss National Science Foundation (FNRS under grant number PINT MULTI/BEJ—R.8002.20; R.D.G., C.B., J.D.W. and W.J.B.-H.); the Joint Cocoa Research Fund of CAOBISCO and ECA (W.J.B.-H., S.P.H., J.D.W.); and the Queensland Government under the Women’s Research Assistance Program (WRAP194-2019RD1; W.J.B.-H.).

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