Even Chocolate Is Bad For The Environment, Valentine’s Day & Easter Are Natural Disasters

Chocolate is undoubtedly one of the most popular treats all around the world. It’s practically synonymous with at least two international holidays; Valentine’s Day and Easter. However, it turns out that this delicious ingredient for some of the world’s most famous desserts is actually an environmental hazard. This means that the holidays celebrating chocolate are disasters for nature, as well.

The study was done by University of Manchester researchers, which looked into the environmental impact of chocolate manufacturing and its mass consumer market in the UK. The findings indicated that the chocolate industry in the island country contributes 2.1m tons of greenhouse gasses annually.

“[T]he global warming potential ranges between 2.91 and 4.15 kg CO2 eq., primary energy demand from 30 to 41 MJ and the water footprint, including water stress, from 31 to 63 l per kilogram of chocolate,” the study reads. “The raw materials are the major hotspot across all impact categories for all three product types, followed by the chocolate production process and packaging. The raw material impacts are mainly due to milk powder, cocoa derivatives, sugar and palm oil.”

As Phys.org points out, the UK is absolutely crazy over chocolate, with the confectionary product resulting in £4 billion in industry value back in 2014. That number is expected to grow by nine percent by 2019.

With regards to the intentions of the researchers in bringing up these points to the public, it has to do with bringing awareness to the considerable strain that chocolate consumption has on the environment. The more people eat or want to eat chocolate, the more companies will supply such demand. This, in turn, will mean a bigger burden on nature.

It’s simply a matter of fact that there is a cost to the conveniences that modern humans enjoy. It would simply be helpful if some mindfulness can accompany such conveniences.