The multi-dimensional environmental impact of global crop commodities

Agriculture is one of the leading causes of detrimental environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and depletion of freshwater resources, among others. Such impacts can be assessed by environmental sustainability indices, however, limitations in current indicators necessitate the development of more robust and standardized crop-specific environmental sustainability indices. Here, we developed the crop environmental sustainability index (PLANTdex), a spatially-explicit index (5 arcmin resolution) quantifying crop production's environmental impacts. PLANTdex includes globally standardised indicators of environmental impacts assessing water stress and biodiversity loss via five emission pathways: greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, land occupation, nitrogen- and phosphorus- fertiliser application. We applied PLANTdex to 16 crops, revealing high variability across production system efficiencies, crop types, and local context environmental sensitivities. Globally and nationally, no clear correlation emerged between PLANTdex scores and crop production, but stronger correlations were evident at finer spatial scales and for individual crops. Sugarcane showed the strongest negative correlation (low impacts in high-production areas), while oil palm had the strongest positive correlation (high impacts in high-production areas), highlighting the importance of sub-national, crop-specific assessments. PLANTdex’s spatial resolution and crop specificity make it valuable for initiatives like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and corporate sustainability strategies. Here, PLANTdex datasets are provided for 16 crop commodities for the year 2000 at the five arcmin resolution