Land use and deforestation : from cocoa landscapes to global sustainability targets
(2025)
Files
Cecile_Renier_PhD_thesis_Nov2025.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 18.49 MB
Details
- Authors
- Supervisors
- Abstract
- To address the climate and ecological breakdown, multiple forms of interventions are being deployed, such as ‘zero-deforestation’ commitments for commodity supply chains, renewable energy, or nature-based solutions. Leveraging Earth Observation data and spatial analyses, this thesis aims at bringing an improved understanding of the land use outcomes and the limitations of these sustainability interventions, and at exploring how to improve approaches to sustainability. Focussing first on the two major cocoa producing countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the thesis assesses the traceability and transparency of the supply chain and the direct and indirect deforestation induced by cocoa. It shows that narrow sustainability interventions limited to a single crop and specific segments of the supply chain face leakages and are insufficient to stop deforestation. Moving to the global level, the thesis assesses major land demands foreseen by 2050, showing that, together, land-based sustainability targets and pledges for conservation, restoration, renewable energy and bioenergy, and major land demands for food, fiber and timber amount to an area larger than the ice-free land surface and have important overlaps. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the underlying causes of the climate and ecological breakdown. To mitigate the global land ‘squeeze’, it calls for breaking silos and for a systemic approach to sustainability – ultimately seeking sufficiency to reduce production and overconsumption. Cécile Renier holds a degree in bioengineering (UCLouvain, 2013) and in environmental policies (AgroParisTech, 2014). She completed her PhD in geography, as part of the Sustain-Cocoa project (funded by Biodiversa+ and FNRS), and contributing to the Global Land Programme (glp.earth) and the Trase initiative (trase.earth), under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Meyfroidt (ELI/ELIC) and Prof. Goedele Van den Broeck (ELI/ELIA), with support from Prof. Erasmus zu Ermgassen (ELI/ELIC).
- Affiliations
Citations
Renier, C. (2025). Land use and deforestation : from cocoa landscapes to global sustainability targets.