August 19, 2022 articles
Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Oil Palm
Global warming is one of the great concerns of our time, with governments and societies becoming increasingly concerned with finding ways to prevent the rise in global temperatures from breaching the 2°C mark.
The agricultural sector is among the industries that have been identified as being responsible for significant emissions, contributing to 17% of total greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors in 2018. When forests are cleared for agricultural cultivation, soil is disturbed and land-use change takes place, releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Yet, agriculture is arguably the most significant industry that we rely on, responsible for providing essential food security to a growing population of people.
The palm oil industry has faced much scrutiny in this regard as being a major contributor towards carbon emissions, primarily due to the link between oil palm cultivation and deforestation. Efforts to cultivate oil palm plantations have resulted in the deforestation of 36% of forest areas in Sumatra between 1985 and 2016 and 43% in Borneo between 1973 and 2015.
The issue of palm oil related deforestation has been addressed by environmental groups, industry players and governments over the past 20 years, with the establishment of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004 formed for the purpose of promoting widespread adoption of sustainable palm oil production practices as widely as possible. The environmental concerns surrounding palm oil are a complex subject because although these plantations do contribute to deforestation, when compared to other vegetable oils in the market such as rapeseed and soy, the palm oil crop produces more oil per hectare of land than any of its competitors.
Considering that vegetable oil is such a vital ingredient in so many products in the consumer market and that demand is unlikely to fall anytime soon, palm oil remains the most cost effective and land-efficient solution for meeting the required production amount. An over reliance on alternative vegetable-based oils would require far more land to produce the same amount of oil, resulting in even more destruction of forested land.
However, while palm oil plantations have indeed contributed to carbon emissions in the ways mentioned above, there is also evidence to suggest that palm oil plantations could position themselves on the opposite end of the spectrum and be effective sequesters of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Oil palm crops, after all, comprise full grown trees, in themselves capable of photosynthetic processes which absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
According to a number of studies, palm oil plantations are able to absorb a net average of 64 tons of CO2 per hectare each year. On average, natural forests absorb about 7.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 each year. Considering that there are roughly 19 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the world today, these vegetable oil crops could potentially absorb approximately 1.2 billion metric tonnes of CO2, about 15% of the amount absorbed by natural forests.
There is even some evidence to suggest that palm oil crops may absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than natural forests in some instances. In one study, it was demonstrated that the carbon storage potential of a mature palm oil palm plantation, albeit where bunch harvesting does not occur and ecological conditions were optimal, was 1340g C m-2 yr-1. This was shown to be much higher than the carbon sequestration of a standing forest which was only at 150 g C m-2 yr-1 .
It should be noted that authors of the above study concede that the results obtained remain quite partial and further analysis needs to be done which takes into account a broader range of ecological factors, methodologies and oil palm samples. Nevertheless, there remains evidence to suggest that under the right conditions, oil palm plantations could serve as effective sequesters of carbon from the atmosphere.
Malaysian palm oil producers United Plantations (UP) have highlighted in their 2020 annual sustainability report some interesting data pertaining to the environmental impact of palm oil crops on their plantations. UP has been making serious efforts to reduce their environmental footprint by engaging in various nature conservation practices including the cultivation and preservation of biodiversity, the protection of wildlife, as well as forestry and rehabilitation practices.
Additionally, their palm oil crop cultivation adheres to certain strict policies which includes zero burning, no clearing of primary forests and the introduction of methane capturing facilities. Their oil palm crops recorded a fall in CO2 equivalent gases from 3.80 CO2eq./kg NBD oil to 1.57 CO2eq./kg NBD oil between 2004 and 2020.
A study cited in the report highlights the CO2 equivalent gas emissions comparison between RSPO certified palm oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and UP produced palm oil, in which Sunflower oil ranks the highest at 3.37 CO2eq./Kg oil while UP produced palm oil ranks the lowest at 1.57 CO2eq./Kg oil.
Thus, the objective of organisations like the RSPO to achieve net zero emissions and produce sustainable palm oil may be within reach. However, this ability of oil palm to positively impact the climate will remain ineffective if it is not coupled with other sustainable practices which reduce or minimise the carbon footprint of palm oil. The issue remains that the initial setting up process of plantations as well as the on-site operational activities tend to create a carbon footprint that dampens the impact of carbon sequestration efforts thereafter.
Practices and approaches need to be adopted to ensure that the carbon emissions caused by these emissions generating activities are reduced, offset, or entirely done away with. For instance, developers could choose to plant new oil palm crops on barren land or grassland instead of acquiring and clearing intact forest environments, a move which would significantly reduce the emissions rates and carbon deficit usually involved with the initial clearing of forested land.
Similarly, reducing the burning of biomass on plantation sites, an activity that is infamously associated with palm oil plantations, could further reduce its carbon emissions. Mixing oil palm crops with shrub crops is another way to improve the carbon capture potential of oil palm as shrub crops add an additional capturing layer which allows for better sequestration rates. Additionally, making use of biofuels to power machinery and industrial activities on palm oil sites would further reduce carbon emissions. Certain studies have shown that better management over tree felling activities can also have a positive impact on palm oil related carbon emissions.
It therefore appears that indeed palm oil plantations do have the potential for contributing towards reducing carbon emissions, in so providing a truly sustainable means of producing vegetable-based oil. However, only when other relevant carbon offsetting practices are properly implemented does effective carbon sequestration by oil palm plantations become truly effective.
In striving to achieve the goal of creating sustainable palm oil in the future, regulatory bodies such as the RSPO will need to work closely with government associations and corporations to ensure that palm oil-based operations adhere to sustainability practices which can mitigate carbon emissions through the application of relevant carbon capturing practices.
Adopting such practices and creating the necessary conditions for effective carbon sequestration activities will allow the oil palm crop to position itself as the most effective and sustainable agricultural oil producing commodity, providing an added bastion with regards to global carbon sinks and a cleaner climate for the world of tomorrow.