Palm oil is both the world’s most-used vegetable oil and the most criticized for its environmental impact due to the observed reduction in tropical forest areas for its cultivation over the past decades. There is, however, very little discussion on the socio-economic implications associated with the production of palm oil. To contribute to a more informed debate, we conducted an in-depth review of the existing literature addressing the various socio-economic aspects of the production of palm oil, outlining its contribution to the achievement of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). The outcomes, findings and conclusions from 82 studies, published from 2010 onward, were considered as positive, negative, neutral or varied, and sometimes even contradicting, with regard to the contribution of palm cultivation and/or oil production to the achievement of a set of eight SDGs, selected to be those most related to socio-economic development, differentiating when possible between sustainable and conventional production. The results show that it is difficult to draw uniform views, highlighting the nuances and varied facets of the contribution of palm oil to the eight SDGs, some of which are inevitably interconnected. In general, it emerges that palm oil plays a crucial role in boosting the economy and livelihoods of local communities in many developing producer countries, substantially contributing to poverty reduction and to food security. However, the expansion of oil palm plantations has, in some cases, exacerbated social inequalities, and the economic growth generated by the palm oil production chain is not always accompanied by decent working conditions. Against this backdrop, the achievement of some SDGs is often facilitated by the implementation of sustainability certification schemes that play a key role in improving the socio-economic and environmental performance of palm oil production. This leads enhanced socio-economic livelihoods for the people living in the production areas in terms of working conditions, infrastructure, services and wages, with a consequent reduction of poverty rates, an increase in education quality, as well as better access to food and healthcare systems.

Wildfires are the most common disturbances in Mediterranean forest ecosystems that cause significant emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of biomass burning. Despite this, there is reasonably high uncertainty regarding the actual fraction of burnt biomass and the related CO2 and non-CO2 gas emissions released during forest fires. The aim of this paper is to compare existing methodologies adopted in the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports of five of the most fire-affected countries of southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, France) with those proposed in the literature, to operationally estimate forest fire emissions, and to discuss current perspectives on reducing uncertainties in reporting activities for the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Five selected approaches have been experimentally applied for the estimation of burnt biomass in forest fire events that occurred in Italy in the period 2008–2010. Approaches based on nominal rates of biomass loss can lead to an overly conservative value or, conversely, to underestimation of the fraction of burnt biomass. Uncertainties can be greatly reduced by an operational method able to assess inter-annual and local variability of fire effects on fire-affected forest types.

Oil crops are among the main drivers of global land use changes. Palm oil is possibly the most criticized, as a driver of primary tropical forests loss. This has generated two different reactions in its use in various sectors (e.g., food, feed, biodiesel, surfactant applications, etc.): from one side there is a growing claim for deforestation-free palm oil, whereas on the other side the attention raised towards other vegetable oils as possible substitutes, such as soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil. We assess potential land use changes and consequent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for switching from palm oil to other oils and compare this solution to deforestation-free palm oils. We consider three scenarios of 25 %, 50 % and 100 % palm oil replacement in the eight major oil crop producing countries. Total GHG emissions account for anthropogenic emissions generated along the life cycle of the field production process and potential forest carbon stock losses from land use change for oil crops expansion. Replacing palm oil with other oils would have a worthless effect in terms of global emissions reduction since GHG emissions remain approximatively stable across the three scenarios, whereas it would produce a deforestation increase of 28.2 to 51.9 Mha worldwide (or 7 to 21.5 Mha if excluding the unlikely deforestation in USA, Russia, Ukraine and the offset deforestation in China, India). Conversely, if the global palm oil production becomes deforestation-free, its GHG emissions would be reduced by 92 %, switching from the current 371 to 29 Mt CO₂eq per year. Although highlighting the historical unsustainability of oil palm plantations, results show that replacing them with other oil crops almost never represents a more sustainable solution, thus potentially questioning sustainability claims of palm oil free products with respect to deforestation-free palm oil.