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

Abstract

The sustainability of production is one of the greatest challenges experienced by the

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

“…This research used the POSA framework to assess sustainability implications of incorporating a biogas trapping system into the palm oil mill of a crude palm oil supply chain. A previous study conducted by the authors Lim and Biswas [26], on the most common 60MT/hr crude palm oil supply chain in Borneo Island of Malaysia, was used as a baseline for comparison. The current paper utilized raw or primary data of this 60MT/hr crude palm oil supply chain, as this research is a follow up investigation into previously published work [26].…”

“…Inventory of the baseline crude palm oil supply chain by Lim and Biswas [26] was reviewed and revised ( Figure 1). Most assumptions made in the previous study were retained except for a few, which were slightly revised to improve accuracy of the results as follows:…”

“…Apart from the 'devastating impacts' [6] on forests and species, another major environmental impact is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the application of considerable amounts of synthetic fertilizer, and aerobic digestion of large volumes of palm oil mill effluent (POME) [7,8] POME is waste water produced from the crude palm oil production process. Raw POME has low pH (4-5), a high temperature 60 • C-70 • C, a high Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of~32,000 mg/L, This framework was subsequently applied to assess the environmental, economic, and social sustainability implications of the most common crude palm oil supply chain of 60 MT/hr located in the Borneo Island of Malaysia [26]. They found that the overall sustainability performance of this palm oil supply chain is 1.53 points below the sustainability threshold (i.e., 3.47/5), because improvements are required in terms of GHG emissions reduction, smallholder equity enhancement, biomass waste recycling and recovery, plantation practice, as well as average wages and local employment [26].…”

“…Raw POME has low pH (4-5), a high temperature 60 • C-70 • C, a high Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) of~32,000 mg/L, This framework was subsequently applied to assess the environmental, economic, and social sustainability implications of the most common crude palm oil supply chain of 60 MT/hr located in the Borneo Island of Malaysia [26]. They found that the overall sustainability performance of this palm oil supply chain is 1.53 points below the sustainability threshold (i.e., 3.47/5), because improvements are required in terms of GHG emissions reduction, smallholder equity enhancement, biomass waste recycling and recovery, plantation practice, as well as average wages and local employment [26]. Opportunities could exist for improving some of these indicators by complying with the government's new regulation for biogas digester installation in palm oil mills.…”

Towards sustainability‐oriented decision making: Model development and its validation via a comparative case study on building construction methods

“…Economic analysis is conducted through LCCA, which is maturely developed and widely adopted in the building industry. LCCA monitors the creation, operation, and disposal costs of a selected alternative through its life cycle (Lim & Biswas, ; New South Wales Treasury, ), which can assist decision making for building investment projects and offers a new angle to evaluate the cost of buildings. For instance, a building with better quality may cost less than those poor‐quality buildings from life cycle perspective, even though its initial construction cost may be higher.…”