The LCA Approach to Illustrate Palm Oil’s Sustainability Advantage

Using the LCA technique and computing for the different industry practices, the green house gas emission from nursery to mill with six other product flows, was estimated to range from ~650 – 1,300 kg CO2/ton CPO. Allocation of the CO2 by weight to two other co-products, namely palm kernel feed and palm kernel oil reduce the green house gas load of CPO by about 30%. There is potential to reduce the CO2 load of CPO by as much as 60 % when empty fruit bunch (EFB) are used to produce products that are not use within its system boundary. Hot spots were easily and objectively identified using the LCA approach. The most prominent hot spot is the emission of biogas from open treatment ponds, an area where technology is already available to reduce the impact. The assessment of impacts over the life cycle also meant considerations on the ability of the plantation living biomass to sequester CO2 as well as its emission associated with landuse change. In the study, the emission and sequestration were estimated in relation to the 20 year life span of the oil palm. Further reduction in the CO2 load per unit of CPO was ascertained based on the proposed concept. The LCA approach that was used to quantify green house gas emission in the study is applicable to evaluate other impact categories such as resource consumption, acidification and eutrophication