It is crucial that palm oil decarbonises its value chain to support the global transition to sustainability
Palm oil is a paradox. It’s a vital ingredient in countless products, from food to cosmetics, and a crucial economic driver for many nations. The global demand for vegetable oils—including palm oil—is soaring, with production of vegetable oils forecast to reach 222.8 million tonnes by the end of 2024. Although palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil, its production has been linked directly and indirectly to deforestation, human rights abuses and climate change.
At the heart of the palm oil industry lies a complex value chain, from plantations to processing facilities and refineries. Each stage in this chain presents opportunities for both environmental harm and positive impacts. For example, the conversion of palm oil waste products into biofuels, bioproducts or biofertilisers offers a pathway to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint. However, the expansion of oil palm plantations into forested areas remains a major concern.
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As the largest vegetable oil industry in the world, it’s critical palm oil decarbonises its value chain to support the global transition to sustainability. In the last decade, various initiatives and certification systems, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil and Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil have been developed to promote sustainable production. These certifications are aimed at auditing current practices and promoting sustainable production methods.
The path to palm oil
Palm oil production involves several steps. First, palm fruits are harvested from oil palm plantations. These fruits are then processed in mills to extract the crude oils (crude palm oil and crude palm kernel oil). During the extraction of crude oils, this process creates waste or by-products such as empty fruit bunches and palm kernels.
These by-products can be reused in various ways such as being turned into biofertiliser, fuel or electricity. However, this process isn’t always efficient and can still harm the environment if not managed with proper treatment and disposal.
Additionally, growing and processing palm oil requires resources such as water, energy and chemicals. Waste from palm oil mills, if not properly managed, can pollute water sources and the mills also release a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Deforestation to make way for new palm oil plantations also contributes to climate change.
To address these issues, researchers are exploring ways to make palm oil production more sustainable, such as conversion of by-products into biofuels and biomaterials capturing and using the greenhouse gases produced, and using less harmful chemicals.
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Decarbonisation strategies
Various efforts to decarbonise the palm oil value chain have been tried. These include both nature-based solutions and engineered solutions. Nature-based solutions aim to restore carbon dioxide via the natural photosynthesis process as natural carbon sinks, which absorb more carbon than they release, while engineered solutions attempt to capture greenhouse gas emissions for storage and later use.
Based on current practices, by-products generated as part of the plantation and milling processes, in the form of oil palm fronds and empty fruit bunches, are returned to the plantations for mulching to return nutrients to the soil.
To enhance nutrient recovery from the empty fruit bunches, they can be converted into biofertiliser via fermentation. The produced biofertiliser has a higher nutrient content and is more easily absorbed by the tree. It also reduces the time the by-products take to degrade.
Palm kernel shells can be converted into biochar, a form of plant matter like charcoal which locks the carbon they contain away rather than releasing it if the shells were to naturally decompose. This biochar gets returned to plantations and is considered a negative carbon emission. At the same time, it also improves the microbial activity in the soil.