Integrated sustainability assessment framework with mitigation strategy for palm oil mill

Abstract

Over the past decades, palm oil mills have been proven to be a profit-making industry. The rapid advancement of this industry poses many challenges from non-government organisations and society to ensure that the operation and production of the palm oil mills remain sustainable. Therefore, many palm oil industries are now committing to adhere to certification schemes to further improve their mill management towards sustainability and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the current palm oil certification scheme has several drawbacks and limitations that burden the industry. This study presents the development of an integrated palm oil mill carbon footprint and accounting (POMCFA) and a novel palm oil mill sustainability index (POMSI) framework that incorporates mitigation strategy selection tool. This framework enables millers to assess the carbon footprint and sustainability performance of their palm oil mills using one palm oil mill inventory. First, this study developed the POMCFA parameters and indicators to calculate the carbon emissions of the mill. This measurement was based on the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). The parameters and indicators of POMCFA were then included as part of the POMSI database. Following that, the POMSI assessment was performed via the adoption of a proximity-to-target approach that measures the current sustainability performance of an industry relative to the policy targets. The POMCFA performance was obtained in terms of total CO2e and GHG profile. The POMSI performances were then translated into five rating systems to describe the sustainability performance levels of the industries i.e. excellent, good, fair, poor, and very poor. An industry-comparable performance was observed using a graphical method. Selected palm oil mills in Malaysia were used as case studies to demonstrate the applicability of the framework. Based on the result, it was found that several indicators of POMCFA and POMSI did not perform efficiently. By identifying the weak-performing indicators, profound recommendations for integrated improvement measures were proposed. In particular, a mitigation selection tool was developed to select the technology to improve upon the weaknesses in the model. Then, the POMCFA and POMSI scores were recalculated to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy on the sustainability performance and/or CO2e emission of the mill. This method enables the industry to continuously measure and keep track of emissions performance and sustainability practices. The assessments give the impetus for every mill to compete towards better improvement and to learn from each other, besides working to improve industry performance as a whole. In addition, the comprehensive assessment offered by the mitigation model in this study results in a better analysis;