An Evaluation of Holistic Sustainability Assessment Framework for Palm Oil Production in Malaysia

Abstract

Palm oil based biodiesel offers an alternative energy source that can reduce current dependence on conventional fossil fuels and may reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions depending on the type of feedstock and processes used. In the Malaysian context, the palm oil industry not only provides high-yield, renewable feedstock to the world, it brings socio-economic development to the Malaysian rural community and contributes to the national income. However, the sustainability of palm oil remains controversial, due to deforestation, pollution and social conflicts associated with its production. Sustainability assessment is vital for the palm oil industry to identify weaknesses, improve its sustainability performance and improve consumer confidence. This paper proposes a holistic sustainability assessment framework for palm oil production with the aim to address the weaknesses of existing palm oil sustainability assessment methods. It identifies environmental, social and economic Headline Performance Indicators, Key Performance Indicators and their Performance Measures in crude palm oil production in a structured framework. Each quantitative/semi-quantitative performance measure is translated into Likert Scale of 1-5, where 3 is the threshold value, 5 is the ideal condition, and 1 is the worst case scenario. Calculation methods were established for the framework to provide quantitative assessment results. The framework was tested using a hypothetical example with data from existing studies. The results suggest that crude palm oil production in Malaysia is below the sustainability threshold. Evaluations of this sustainability assessment framework also demonstrate that it is a comprehensive assessment method for assessing sustainability of feedstock for biofuel production.

Sustainability assessment for crude palm oil production in Malaysia using the palm oil sustainability assessment framework

“…The average income of workers along the CPO supply chain is RM1409 (USD352.25 for exchange rate of RM4 to 1USD), which is higher than the national minimum wage in East Malaysia (i.e., RM920 [USD230] and RM1000 [USD250] in West Malaysia) (Kannan, ). However, the POSA framework evaluates relative poverty rather than absolute poverty, which reflects better on wealth distribution (Lim & Biswas, ). Therefore, the average income of workers is in fact below the relative poverty line although the business owners of the supply chain have offered wages that are higher than the minimum national limit.…”

“…Taking these factors into account, we have developed the Palm Oil Sustainability Assessment (POSA) framework for assessing TBL objectives of Malaysian crude palm oil production (Lim et al, ; Lim & Biswas, , ). According to this framework, the TBL indicators had to be determined through a consensus conference, involving industry, academia, government and local community stakeholders.…”

Sustainability Implications of the Incorporation of a Biogas Trapping System into a Conventional Crude Palm Oil Supply Chain

“…Density of biogas is 1.15 kg/Nm 3 [33]. Thirdly, the ranking value of each Performance Measures (PM), Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Higher Performance Indicator (HPI), and overall sustainability of the supply chain with the biogas trapping system were assessed using the POSA framework [24,25,27]. Each PM was ranked on a 1-5 Likert scale, according to the pre-defined ranking criteria, where level 5 is the sustainability threshold.…”

“…The authors of this paper, Lim and Biswas, recently developed a POSA framework specifically for holistic sustainability assessment of crude palm oil production throughout its supply chain [24,25].…”

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

“…Sources of various feedstocks (or distance travelled) and their long-term availability to produce alternative fuels are crucial for the economic and environmental feasibility of alternative fuel for any region [15,18,19]. The selection of proper indicators is also deemed necessary for a particular region for assessing a reliable sustainability strategy [15,16,20,21]. Besides, most of the studies in the literature (more than 75%) only considered fuel production and/or the use phase of fuel [16].…”