Environmental Sustainability Assessment Approach for Palm Oil Production in Malaysia

Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2020, Volume 8, Issue 3, Pages: 1046-1053

J. Environ. Treat. Tech.

ISSN: 2309-1185

Journal web link: http://www.jett.dormaj.com

Environmental Sustainability Assessment Approach

for Palm Oil Production in Malaysia

1,2*

Siti Nur Atikah Yahya , Norhayati Abdullah , Norasikin Ahmad Ludin , Ali Yuzir , Shaza

Eva Mohamad and Iwamoto Koji¹

Algal Biomass iKOHZA, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

UTM International, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Selangor, MALAYSIA

Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Center, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

Received: 12/02/2020

Accepted: 26/06/2020

Published: 20/09/2020

Abstract

Malaysia began introducing several sustainability practices to be able to fulfil requirements of foreign legislation that demands stringent

measures in minimizing environmental impact of products and services throughout their life cycles. This includes participation during 2006

for the National Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) program to support national eco-labelling program. This voluntary-based action correlates

with the government's aim to achieve United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 12 and 13 which are responsible consumption

and production and climate action in reducing carbon footprint while using processes that are environmentally friendly. This study

demonstrates in general how LCA approach is applied to palm oil milling and refinery to determine the potential environmental impacts on

these processes by using ReCiPe 2016 method and SimaPro 8.4.0 software. Primary data were retrieved via site-visit to a palm oil mill and

a refinery plant. Data gap were supported by database from previous studies. Based on the findings, palm oil milling contributes the most

significant impact which were global warming potential (GWP), freshwater eutrophication (FEP) and fossil fuel scarcity (FFP) at midpoint

level. Alternative scenario of full utilization of biomass waste and biogas capture for palm oil milling showed a range of 10% to 20% reduction

for ecosystem quality (ED) while 20% to 30% reduction for resource availability (RA) and human health (HH) at endpoint level. The survey

on perception of LCA implementation at industrial level indicated that it is still uncommon due to lack of application and insufficient

knowledge among industry players on its utilization.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Palm oil production, Sustainability, Sustainable development goals

Introduction¹

performance in meeting the needs of those in the future [3].

Malaysia palm oil industry began its sustainability initiatives with

introduction of environmental law to protect the land from

deforestation and land-use change, participation as a member of

the established Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO),

sustainability schemes and implementation of Best Management

Practices (BMP) for palm oil plantation. Recently, application of

primary tools through environmental management and life cycle

assessment (LCA) has further reflected the importance of

environmental sustainability in palm oil industry [4].

The start of a vigorous palm oil trading came from the search

of biofuel, a promising renewable energy to replace the finite

source of fossil fuel due to suitable weather conditions, high yield

and cost-effective production. Malaysia saw the promising future

of biodiesel and ventured into the business of palm oil and

managed to rank second as a world palm oil producer [1]

accounting for 39% of world production and 44% of world export.

Consequently, the rapid growth of supply-demand caused

Malaysia palm oil industry to face several environmental issues

which often been raised by non-profit organizations (NGOs) and

green activist [2] which triggered Malaysia’s government to take

a step further by introducing sustainability concept in order to

provide possible solution to minimize existing problems.

The sustainability concept is adopted from the United Nation’s

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda 2030 whereby

that focuses on SDG 12 and 13; responsible consumption and

production and climate action. A sustainable supply chain system

or product is achieved when the needs and aspirations of the

current generation are attained without compromising the

.1 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A sustainability assessment tool namely LCA is utilized to

monitor environmental trade-offs in a product or system. LCA is

methodological assessment supervised by international series of

ISO 14000 standards to assist in creating products and

technologies that are environmentally friendly and for the purpose

of impact evaluation on the environment [5]. Started in 2006,

Malaysia participated in the National Life Cycle Assessment

Project that prolonged for five years to execute several outputs

Corresponding author: Norhayati Abdullah, UTM International, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, E-

mail: norhayati@utm.my.

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Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2020, Volume 8, Issue 3, Pages: 1046-1053

when Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) ended [4].

as background database located in the software that was used to

produce environmental impact results. The scope of this study

involved two system boundaries (SBs) which were milling and

refinery stages. Both system boundaries involved private mills

which do not have their own plantation and fresh fruit bunches

(FFB) are obtained from other plantation companies. The

databases were collected from input and output of milling stage

(SB I) as well as input and output of refinery stage (SB II).

Allocation assumption was necessary in attributional LCA

modelling since both SBs produce co-products.

Malaysia Palm Oil Berhad (MPOB) was the first to conduct

full LCA on a crude palm oil production to serve as baseline

information for any interested entities in the industry to

implement LCA for their palm oil production [6]. Although there

exist several LCA studies specifically focused on Malaysia’s

palm oil production, most of the studies targeted on nursery and

plantation stages only due to the rise of deforestation and

biodiversity loss issues. Malaysia palm oil industry cannot claim

that their palm oil making processes are hundred percent

sustainable if the whole processes are not equally monitored for

their environmental performance on daily basis. Moreover, the

insufficient environmental database on palm oil production could

also be the reason implementation of LCA on industrial level in

Malaysia palm oil industry is still a voluntary-based action.

Hence, this paper intends to produce another LCA study of palm

oil production in Malaysia particularly on other stages than

nursery and plantation in palm oil production with the hope to

broaden the availability of environmental database and a brief

online survey is conducted to determine the current

implementation of LCA in palm oil production in Malaysia.

2.2 Database collection and analysis method

In inventory analysis, a functional unit (FU) served as a

reference basis where all resources and emissions compiled are

converted into a specific system under investigation [8]. For SB I

and SB II, the FU were 1 ton of fresh fruit bunches (FFB)

processed and 1 ton of crude palm oil (CPO) processed

respectively. Product’s mass was used for allocation process of

the inputs and outputs flow. In terms of selection of mills and

refinery plant, the factors include type of mills (with or without

plantation), processing capacity and location to suits previous

studies’ conditions in order to make the secondary database

relevant to the current study [6][8][9]. Figure 2 represents the

input and output based on the functional units stated for SB I and

SB II.

Material and methods

In this study, LCA framework is used to access environmental

performance of milling and refinery stages in palm oil production.

A brief survey also has been conducted via dispersing online

questionnaire to a specific colony of respondents to determine the

familiarity of LCA among people whose work are closely related

to palm oil sector in Malaysia. There are basically four

components involved in conducting LCA of palm oil production

which are goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory (LCI),

life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and lastly, interpretation of

the impact assessment [7]. The steps are illustrated in Figure 1.

Main products

Crude palm oil

Co-products

Empty Fruit

Bunches (EFB)

Mesocarp fiber

Shell

0.20 ton

0.200 ton

0.165 ton

0.089 ton

0.053 ton

Materials and fuels

FFB

1.0 ton

Diesel

30 Mega-

Kernel

Joule

Resources

Water

Palm oil mill

effluent (POME)

Emissions

Methane (biogenic)

kilogram

0.360 ton

623 Liter

SB I

6.73

Energy

Steam turbine

Joule

0.8 Mega-

Literature

Carbon dioxide

(

biogenic)

12.20 kilogram

0.006

Transport

Lorry/ truck

Boiler ash

kilogram

Methodology

Flue gas from stack

Particulate matter

kilogram

0.226

0.042

Functional Unit

Carbon monoxide

Goal & Scope definition

System

Materials and fuels

Crude palm oil

Phosphoric acid

kilogram

Bleaching earth

kilogram

Resources

Water

Energy

Electricity

Main products

Refined palm oil

Palm fatty acid

Distillate

Water emissions

Wastewater

1.0 ton

0.45

33.25 ton

0.051 ton

150 Liter

Inventory Analysis

Databases from:



Literature

review

8.0

Alternative

scenario; compare

the environmental



Foreground

data

SB II

Spent bleaching earth 10.0

kilogram

Impact Assessment

Interpretation

Reporting

350 Liter

4.0

Wastewater BOD

4.21

loads

from

resulting

CPO

_k_i_l_o_g_r_a_m_W_a_s_t_e_w_a_t_e_r_C_O_D2

Kilowatt-hour

Transport

Lorry/truck

2.10 kilogram

production

from

mills with and

without biogas

capture, with and

without full

Notes:

Perform modelling

via SimaPro

Figure 2: Inventory analysis of system boundary 1 (SB I) and system

boundary 2 (SB II)

Figure 1: Process flowchart of LCA methodology

The questionnaire to obtain primary data directly from the

representative of palm oil mill and refinery plant were developed

according to the standard procedures in ISO 14041 (1998) [10].

Some of the necessary information include detailed process

flowchart, the input and output flows of the analysed product. In

general, the complete chain of palm oil production starts from

Based on Figure 1, the goal of this study was to build inventory

for milling and refinery stages based on primary and secondary

databases. To obtain primary data, site visit to a local palm oil

mill and a palm oil refinery plant were conducted and data gaps

were supported by relevant database from previous studies as well

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