Pesticides’ carbon footprint is massively underestimated. We need better metrics for innovative technologies.
Crop protection does not have one big bad wolf pesticide like fertilizers’ nitrogen. According to phys.org (1, 2) “Manure and synthetic fertilizers emit the equivalent of 2.6 gigatons of carbon per year -more than global aviation and shipping combined.” For impact and climate investors going after one big problem with a significant impact is a no brainer. Calculating reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in terms of gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) is easy because there are many publications and market reports available for climate and impact investors (3). Nitrogen alone cannot solve agriculture’s carbon emission problem because the bigger problem, crop protection, is overlooked and underestimated.
Crop protection has many medium size wolves which collectively create more CO2e emissions than nitrogen. Furthermore, GHG emissions produced by pesticides are massively underreported for the following reasons (4). Keep reading