Coffee and Cigarettes: Global Stimulant Consumption Drives Biodiversity Loss in Key Ecoregions

The global food trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss, much of which occurs outside regions of consumption. Stimulant products (coffee, chocolate, tea, and tobacco) are some of the most ecologically impactful products in our kitchens and thus warrant particular scrutiny. Stimulant production is concentrated in especially biodiverse equatorial countries, with increasing rates of consumption strongly correlated with higher incomes. However, a detailed analysis of regionally specific biodiversity impacts from stimulant consumption has never been conducted on a global scale. Using environmentally extended input-output analysis, we link areas of production to final consumption using an expanded version of the FABIO database. We connect this economic data to ecological impacts via updated characterization factors for global extinction potential. An interregional analysis of biodiversity loss embodied in trade flows revealed strong evidence of consumption in high-income countries driving biodiversity loss in middle- and low-income producing countries for coffee and cocoa products, with tea and tobacco products exhibiting lower overall impacts and smaller cross-income trade flows. Together, coffee and cocoa are responsible for 86% of biodiversity impacts from stimulant products, with per-capita impacts concentrated heavily in Europe and North America. We also find that stimulant consumption critically threatens some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems. Consumption is global, but 70% of all biodiversity impacts occur in just 5% of ecoregions, concentrated heavily in tropical countries. Stimulant consumption in Western countries drives biodiversity loss most significantly in the Eastern Guinean Forest, Central American Pine-Oak Forest, and Northern Indochina Subtropical Forest ecoregions. By illuminating such patterns in the global stimulant trade, we help identify high-risk commodity supply chains and the specific ecosystems they threaten.