The keys to reduce environmental impacts of palm oil

Oil palm is largely criticised for its impact on the environment. According to Life Cycle Assessment studies, the agricultural stage proved to be a major contributor to most of the potential environmental impacts, notably global warming, eutrophication and acidification. Focusing on global warming impact, main contributors are land use change and peat cultivation, N-related GHG emissions from fertilisers and residues in the plantation and methane emissions from palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. Impact from POME can be drastically reduced if POME is used for composting or if the biogas from anaerobic treatment is captured with electricity recovery. However, the impact from the plantation establishment becomes overwhelming when forests or peatland areas are converted to palm plantations. Oil palm plantations have significantly driven deforestation in Indonesia, together with logging and mining. It remains the most important agricultural driver despite the governmental moratorium and the certification schemes in place since 2011 and 2007; respectively. In order to protect primary forests and peatlands, which is absolutely mandatory to avoid irreversible carbon and biodiversity losses, it is paramount to define a sustainable land planning at national and landscape levels, as well as to implement agroecological practices in the plantations in order to sustainably increase yields and limit further land clearing

Introduction to PalmGHG - The RSPO greenhouse gas calculator for oil palm products

PalmGHG has been developed by the RSPO Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Working Group 2. It is a spreadsheet that quantifies the major sources of emissions and sequestration for a palm oil mill and its supply base, including estates and outgrowers, and is compatible with standard international GHG accounting methodologies. The calculator is flexible, allowing for different crop rotation lengths and alternatives to the default values. It calculates the total net emissions per ha, allocates these to co-products, and expresses them as t CO2e/t palm product, e.g. crude palm oil (CPO). The calculations can be done on an annual basis: this allows for identification of principal emission sources for management purposes; regular reporting, internally to the company and externally to the supply chain; and monitoring. A pilot study has been carried out in 2011 on nine RSPO companies, to determine its ease of use, and suitability of PalmGHG as a management tool. Results from eight mills gave an average of 1.03t CO2e/t CPO, with a wide range of -0.07 to +2.46t CO2e/t CPO. Previous land use and the percentage of the area under peat were the main causes of the variation. PalmGHG readily allows manipulation of input data to test management interventions. Results of scenario testing are given for a set of dummy data. The results show that high emissions result from clearing logged forest or peat, and conversely that very low (negative) emissions result from clearing low biomass land such as grassland. Net emissions below 0.5t CO2e/t CPO can be obtained from a mature industry that is replanting palms and capturing methane and generating electricity from the biogas. Further modifications to PalmGHG are being made, to amend default values and include calculations for biodiesel and other co-products. The updated calculator will then be tested through peer review, and completed by simplifying procedures for data entry, and providing documentation. (Texte intégral

¿Como proteger el medio ambiente con la palma sostenible ?

Palm oil production has drastically increased in the last decades raising some concern in terms of environmental impacts, notably when it comes at the cost of deforestation. Environmental impacts can occur all along a value chain, so that assessment tools need to account for the whole production chain. Life cycle assessment is a standardised methodology allowing for the assessment of environmental impacts along a value chain. According to Life Cycle Assessment studies, the agricultural stage of palm oil production systems proved to be the major contributor to most of the potential environmental impacts, notably global warming, eutrophication and acidification. Focusing on global warming impact, main contributors are land use change and peat cultivation, GHG emissions from fertilisers and residues applied in the plantation and methane emissions from palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. Impact from POME can be significantly reduced if POME is used for composting or if the biogas from anaerobic treatment is captured with electricity recovery. However, the impact from the plantation establishment becomes overwhelming when non-degraded forests or peatland areas are converted to palm plantations. Together with logging, pulp and paper, and mining, oil palm plantations have driven deforestation in Indonesia. The development of palm plantations remains the most important agricultural driver of deforestation despite the governmental moratorium and the certification schemes, which have been in place since 2011 and 2007; respectively. In order to protect primary forests and peatlands – a mandatory step to avoid irreversible carbon and biodiversity losses, it is paramount to define a sustainable land planning at national and landscape levels, as well as to implement agroecological practices in the plantations in order to sustainably increase yields and limit further land clearing

PalmGHG, RSPO greenhouse gas calculator, scientific background

GHG emissions from palm plantations are a major environmental issue in main producing countries. Through its working groups, RSPO developed a GHG calculator, PalmGHG, which can help the producers to monitor the GHG emissions from their supply areas and mill units and establish reduction plans. In 2013, the use of PalmGHG (or an RSPO endorsed equivalent) has been integrated in the revised Principles & Criteria for the Production of Sustainable Palm Oil (P&C 2013), which created an emulation to tackle this GHG issue. This paper provides an overview of the development of PalmGHG and its various versions as well as explains the main characteristics, calculation assumptions and features

LCA of Palm Oil in Sumatra, Comparison of Cropping Systems

The agricultural sector is facing a huge increase in consumption patterns and food needs. This growth is likely to worsen the pressures on the local and global environments. The CIRAD, within the frame of the ADEME project called Agri-BALYSE, is in charge of assessing the environmental impacts of palm oil. The chosen methodology is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Today, Indonesia is the first world producer of palm oil. The Riau Province in Sumatra is one of the most dynamic regions in terms of palm oil production, and has therefore been chosen for our case study. The data inventory was carried out with the assistance of SMARTRI, the research center of PT-SMART. In the study area, diverse types of palm oil producers were identified and characterised in order to produce the relevant LCA for the diverse cropping systems. Data were collected in the field for the company and diverse types of smallholders, i.e. plasma, and independent smallholders with or without advices from the company on the agricultural management. We used SIMAPRO® to build up the LCAs and compare the environmental impacts of the different types of palm oil producers in Sumatra. We present here the preliminary results of the study. The functional unit was one metric ton of crude palm oil (CPO). The hierarchy of impacting cropping systems varied with the type of producers. Globally the Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) yields were lower per hectare for the independent smallholders and impacts per metric ton of CPO were larger. Despite the management advices that some independent smallholders received, their yields were still lower than those of the company probably due to non-selected plant materials. Further field data collection is still needed however, i) to survey more smallholders and insure the representativeness of modelled cropping systems, and ii) to gather more data on differential agricultural managements, notably on very diverse organic fertilizers used by smallholders. (Résumé d'auteur

Soil organic carbon, climate change, and soil quality: a mapping of existing methods for LCA

Land use interventions lead to a great variety of impacts on the environment, including modification and fragmentation of habitats, or alteration of soil properties, resulting in effects on soil fertility, climate change, or water filtration and regulation. Among parameters describing soil properties, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) plays a key role: it is one of the main describers of soil quality, closely linked to soil fertility, and it is also crucial for climate change as it represents a global carbon stock of 1500-2400 GtC, i.e. around three times that of atmospheric carbon. Consequently, SOC can be considered in many different methods for LCA, dealing with LCI or LCIA, with soil quality or climate change issues. There is thus a need for LCA practitioners to better understand the diversity of these methods, their various purposes and coverages, their differences and potential complementarities. This study aimed at mapping LCA-related methods dealing with SOC effects on climate change and soil quality. Some methods, not dealing directly with SOC but considering soil quality or effects of the carbon cycle on climate change, were also included for a more comprehensive mapping. More than 30 method proposals were identified in the literature and considered. Variations of a same method, i.e. based on a common principle but involved in different guidelines, or using different data, were grouped together. For instance, the characterisation models proposed by Milà i Canals et al. (2007) to assess land use impacts on life support functions, and by Brandão & Milà i Canals (2013) to assess land use impacts on biotic production, are based on the very same model but developed at different scales and using different data sources. Then, links between methods or groups of methods sharing a common conceptual baseline were clearly identified. For example, dynamic LCA as defined by Levasseur et al. (2010) to deal with temporal GHG emission profiles and ILCD recommendation to take into account delayed CO2 emissions (EC-JRC, 2010) are based on a common theoretical principle but differ in terms of implementation. Finally, this mapping helps to differentiate between marginal variations and critical sound differences among the great diversity of existing methods. It also allows for identifying relevant methods and proposing specific recommendations to take into account SOC in LCA. (Texte intégral

Impactos ambientales de productos de aceite de palma: ¿Qué podemos aprender del Análisis de Ciclo de Vida?

Cuantificar el impacto ambiental de los sistemas de producción se ha convertido en un hito para las cadenas de productos agrícolas. El Análisis de Ciclo de Vida (ACV) es una metodología estandarizada ISO única para estimar el impacto ambiental de las actividades humanas a lo largo de una cadena productiva. En la última década, el ACV se ha convertido en el estándar mundial para las declaraciones ambientales de producto y el modelo de base detrás de varias calculadoras de gases efecto invernadero (GEI) y certificaciones (por ejemplo, CE, 2009, RSPO PalmGHG). Varios ACV de productos de aceite de palma han demostrado que la fase agrícola es un contribuyente muy importante a la mayoría de los potenciales impactos medioambientales, como, por ejemplo, calentamiento global, la eutrofización y la acidificación (Yusoff y Hansen, 2005; Schmidt, 2007; Chuchuoy et al., 2009; Choo et al., 2011). Este gran aporte se debe a una combinación de la entrada de niveles de nitrógeno (N) en el campo y los bajos niveles de entrada en planta extractora, y la refinería. La fase agrícola sigue siendo un colaborador crítico, incluso cuando el límite del sistema se extiende a la producción de biocombustibles con base en palma (Pleanjai et al., 2009; Achten et al., 2010; Papong et al., 2010; Arvidsson et al., 2011). Enfocándose en el impacto sobre el calentamiento global, los principales contribuyentes son las emisiones relacionadas con N-GEI en las plantaciones y las emisiones de metano provenientes de los efluentes de la planta extractora de aceite de palma (POME). El impacto de la plantación es abrumador cuando los bosques o las áreas pantanosas se convierten en plantaciones de palma (Wicke et al., 2008; Reijnders y Huijbregts, 2008; Schmidt, 2010). Mientras tanto, el impacto de (POME) puede reducirse drásticamente si el biogás es capturado con recuperación de electricidad. Mientras los N-insumos son críticos, la mayoría de modelos ACV aún dependen de factores de emisión global (IPCC, 2006). Un mejor modelamiento del equilibrio N incluyendo una mejor contabilidad de procesos del suelo, permite un diagnóstico más preciso de los impactos ambientales y control de los mecanismos en la gestión de la plantación

Soil fertility, evolving concepts and assessments

Many authors have discussed the concept of soil fertility. Despite some disagreement on the exact terminology, soil fertility retrospectively appeared to focus generally on the use of soil for agriculture. It was defined some 150 years ago, while agricultural sciences mostly focused on soil physical and chemical properties. More recently, with the increasing awareness of environmental issues related to agricultural land use and the development of new knowledge on ecosystems, more comprehensive approaches to soil quality were developed. Since the 1980s, growing knowledge on the roles of soil organic matter and living organisms has emphasised the importance of understanding and assessing the biological components of the soil and their functions alongside the physical and chemical components. Soil is described as a living system that fulfils several functions, such as primary production, environmental filter and climate regulation. Following the metaphor of a complex living 'organism', the term 'soil health' is thus used by some authors instead of soil quality. Soil quality is hence defined as the soil fitness for use, which cannot be measured directly. It must be assessed in a sensitive and holistic way that accounts for both inherent properties and dynamic responses to management and resistance to environmental stress. Several sets of indicators and more integrated methods have been developed. However, further research is still needed to consolidate assessment guidelines that would help to model better the impact of agricultural practices on soil quality and to define strategies for a sustainable management of soil quality. (Résumé d'auteur