Avocado orchards in Mexico are constantly being expanded to meet the increasing demand for the fruit in the national and international markets. The land-use change (LUC) caused by this expansion has numerous negative impacts, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to the loss of forest cover and the open burning of biomass. The present study is a timely evaluation of a complex environmental problem through an integrative approach. We analyze LUC between the years 1974–2017 at a local scale (1:25,000), calculate emissions from LUC, and estimate the energy potential of pruning residues as an alternative to revalue waste and mitigate the negative impacts of avocado cultivation. Our results show that land-use conversions emitted 390.5 Gg CO2 into the atmosphere, of which 91% came from conversions to avocado orchards. Emissions of GHG from open biomass burning amounted to an additional 1.9 to 0.21 Gg CO2e released into the atmosphere per year. Given that around 2500 dry tons of avocado pruning residues are generated annually in the study region, their use for energy generation could replace 50 TJ/year of fossil fuels, offsetting the energy used in orchards and mitigating around 6.4 Gg CO2e per year. Based on our results, we recommend incorporating pruning residues as an energy generation strategy for avocado sustainable development.
