Enhancement LCA of Palm Oil

with Malaysian Formulated

IndicatorsS. Yusoff, Onn C.C.,

Department of Civil, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Lembah Pantai,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

*Corresponding author. Phone: +603 79675285, Fax: +603-79675318

Email: sumiani@um.edu.my

Outline of Presentation

• Introduction

• The LCA Framework -LCIA

• Malaysian Enhanced LCA Study

• The LCIA Indicators

• Application of Malaysian Indicators

• Conclusion

Introduction-Palm Oil Industry

Malaysia is the main palm oil production country which produces almost half ofthe world production value at 15.8 millions tones in year 2007. As of 2007, thecumulative land area of palm oil plantations in Malaysia is approximately 4.3million hectares

This rising demand is resulting in establishment of more new palm plantationsand there are growing concerns that this will be harmful to the environment inseveral ways especially the significant of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions such as CO2

LCA (ISO 14040)

Goal & scopedefinition

Inventory

Analysis

Impact

Assessment

Inter-

pretation

The Life Cycle Assessment Framework

Direct applications

Product development

Strategic Planning

Public policy making

Marketing

Other

Life Cycle Assessment – The framework

LCA is widely used as a tool to access and identified environmental weak points ofselected activities, process or product’s life cycle. LCA takes a “cradle to grave”approach in evaluating the environmental consequences of a particular product,process, or activity from the extraction of raw materials through to processing,transport, use, reuse, and disposal

Extraction of

raw materials

Manufacturing

Disposal or possible

recovery of the

product.

cradle-to-grave

analysis

Distribution

Use of the product

Processing

LCI

‘LCI' involves data collection and modeling of the product system, as well as descriptionand verification of data. This encompasses all data related to environmental (e.g., CO2)and technical (e.g., intermediate chemicals) quantities for all relevant unit processeswithin the study boundaries that compose the product system. Examples of inputs andoutputs quantities include inputs of materials, energy, chemicals and 'other' - and outputsin the of air emissions, water emissions or solid waste.

Material

used Energy

used

Emissions

Effluents

Waste generated

Water

used

LCIA

LCIA is aimed at evaluating the contribution to impact categories or damage categories.Here, impact potentials are calculated based on the LCI results. The next steps arenormalization and weighting, but these are both voluntary according the ISO standard.Normalization provides a basis for comparing different types of environmental impactcategories (all impacts get the same unit). Weighting implies assigning a weighting factor toeach impact category depending on the relative importance.

LCI

(Inventory)

Human

Health

Ecosystem

Resources

LCIA

(Impact

Analysis)

Damage

Categories

Importance of this research

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) as a part of LCA are structured in :-

Unfortunately, currently most of the LCIA analysis conducted depended on European basecharacterization, normalization and weighting value which may not be suitable for conductingLCA within Malaysia. This is because the European databases are incapable to reflect theactual Malaysian’s environmental condition.

Scope of this research is to use the newly created normalization and weighting value for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) in Malaysia into a selected palm oil research study.

Classification

Characterization

Normalization

Weighting

NATIONAL LCA PROJECT of MALAYSIA

(2006 -2010)

Overall Objective• To develop capacity and infrastructure for

conduct of life cycle assessment leading to ecodesign and improved environmental performance of products and services for the local and export market.

• Specific Objectivesi. To develop the national life cycle inventory

database ii. To develop a critical mass of local LCA

practitioners.iii. To develop ecolabelling criteria documents

for the National Ecolabelling Programme.iv. To create awareness among industry and

consumer groups on the importance of LCA in today’s manufacturing and purchasing practice.

Chemical

Sector

(Industrial & Agro)

Chair: IKM

Database

Sub-Committee

Chair: SIRIM

Impact

Assessment

Sub-Committee

Chair: UM

Agro-Industry

Sector

Chair:

MPOB

General

Consumer

Goods

Chair: UPM

Petroleum,

Petrochemical

and

Plastic Sector

Chair: PETRONAS

Heavy Industry

Sector

(Cement, Iron,

Steel, Aluminium)

Chair: UKM

Electrical

and

Electronic

Sector

Chair: SIRIM

Waste

Management

(Include Recycling)

Chair:

Local Housing Dept

Utilities & Service

Sector

(Electricity,

Transport, etc)

Chair: SIRIM

NATIONAL LCA PROJECT STRUCTURE

SIRIM

Project Coordinator Secretariat

Steering Committee

Chair: NRE

Members: GLs, Invited Experts

1. One of the subjects under the Ninth Malaysia Plan from Malaysiangovernment is the National Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) project which hasbeen administered to promote the use of LCA and to develop the NationalLife Cycle Inventory Database.

2. This study aims to introduce the concept of LCA and formulate MalaysianLCIA indicators.

3. The formulated indicators are then used to perform an LCA on CPOproduction including the stages of plantation, transport and milling. Theassessment will largely be based on general data and is thus meant tofunction as an indication of the environmental impacts posed by CPOproduction and as a guideline on how to perform an LCA on a palm oilscenario.

4. The Formulated Eco-Indicator 99 method with Malaysian databases in theLCA software SimaPro will being used for the impact calculations.

Study Objective

FORMULATION OF NORMALIZATION INDICATOR

The formulation of normalization values consists of steps below:

1.Refer to references of the total emissions and resource consumption inMalaysia for the reference period (2007).

2.Calculate the impact categories and the damage scores, using thecharacterization and damage factors provided by SIMAPRO 7.

The pollution emission data and resources usage for Malaysia will becollected for the estimation of normalization values.

1. The Malaysia Environmental Quality Report 2008 from the Department ofEnvironmental (DOE) Malaysia, and

2. The report of Compendium of Environment Statistics 2008 (CES, 2006) fromDepartment of Statistic Malaysia.

3. The World Development Indicators 2008 (WDI, 2008) from the World Bank.4. Malaysia Minerals Year Book 2007, (MMYB, 2007) from Minerals and

Geoscience Department Malaysia.

These emission data and resources usage reported for year 2007.

FORMULATION OF NORMALIZATION INDICATOR

The procedure consists of three steps.

1.The development of online questionnaire. The respondents were asked togive weights to three damage categories of human health, ecosystem qualityand resources consumption

2.Send out the questionnaire to a number of respondents. These respondentsmust at least have a little knowledge on LCA studies in order to have moreaccurate results.

3.Analyze the results, and plotting it in to the weighting triangle developed by(Hofstetter, 1999) to produce the weighting value.

FORMULATION OF WEIGHTING INDICATOR

The questionnaire was distributed among the researches and practicingenvironmental engineers and some officers from government agency which wereall are LCA practitioners.

The mixing triangle developed by (Hofstetter, 1999) will be used to display theresult of the weighting values achieved by the respondents through thequestionnaire survey distributed. The weighting values are assigned as factors tothe damage categories of Human Health, Ecosystem Quality, and Human Health.

A total of 51 copies of online questionnaire survey results were collected fromvarious LCA practitioner and environmental experts across the country.

FORMULATION OF WEIGHTING INDICATOR

Plantation

Machinery

Artificial Fertilizer

Energy

Diesel/Elect.

Chemicals

NH3, HNO3,

SO2, H2PO4

Org. residues

Fronds, Old

Stems, EFB,

POME

Org. Fertilizer

FFB

Fronds

Old Stems

Emissions

To air: NO2, SO2,

Pesticide

To soil: N, P2O5

Pesticide

Diesel Emissions

PesticidesEnergy/

chemicals

Transport

Emissions

Land clearing and

plantation start-up

Sterilizer and

Stripper

EFB

Digester and

Screw Press

Clarification

Tank

Anaerobic

Digestion

Depericarper

Nut Cracker and

Dryer

Boiler/

Turbine

Fruitlets

Press Cake

COM

POME

CPO

Kernel

Shell

Nuts

Fibre

Biogas

Digested

POME

Electricity

Steam

Grid

Stack Emissions

80 kg

Construction of

buildings/machinery

Palm Kernel Oil

Mill Transport

Transport

RefiningTransportManufacturing of

Palm Oil Based

Products

Transport

Transport

Use

Disposal

Uncovered

Processes

Uncovered

Processes

Plantation

Processes

Transport

Processes

Mill

Processes

Diesel

Discharge to

waterways

Overview of system components

Inventory into SimaPro

Inventory Term used in SimaPro

All Materials (input) used for Planting, Growth, Harvest of Palm Oil.

Input

All the emission (Output) from Palm Oil Plantation

Output

Transport Diesel

Input into Palm Oli Mill Process Input-mill

Output from Palm Oli Mill Process Output-mill

Normalization and Weighting Values

Eco-indicator 99 (MAL) (H) V1.00 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.05 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Default Impact Assessment Results

Title: Comparing product stages

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.05 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Damage category Unit Input Output Diesel Input-mill Output-mill

Total Pt 25.195 1.832 7.417 56.331 265.207

Human Health Pt 7.566 0.507 0.284 6.561 29.940

Ecosystem Quality Pt 0.892 0.092 0.026 1.130 114.173

Resources Pt 16.737 1.233 7.107 48.640 121.094

Default Impact Assessment Results

Malaysian Impact Assessment Results

Title: Comparing product stages

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (MAL) (H) V1.00 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Damage category Unit Input Output Diesel Input-millOutput-mill

Total Pt 29.901 2.295 5.323 50.763 912.658

Human Health Pt 12.808 0.859 0.481 11.107 50.682

Ecosystem Quality Pt 6.111 0.627 0.179 7.742 782.522

Resources Pt 10.982 0.809 4.663 31.915 79.454

Malaysian Impact Assessment Results

Impact Assessment Results – Comparison Between Default vs Malaysian Indicators

Title: Comparing product stages

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.05 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Damage category Unit Input Output Diesel Input-mill Output-mill

Total Pt 25.195 1.832 7.417 56.331 265.207

Human Health Pt 7.566 0.507 0.284 6.561 29.940

Ecosystem Quality Pt 0.892 0.092 0.026 1.130 114.173

Resources Pt 16.737 1.233 7.107 48.640 121.094

Title: Comparing product stages

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (MAL) (H) V1.00 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Damage category Unit Input Output Diesel Input-mill Output-mill

Total Pt 29.901 2.295 5.323 50.763 912.658

Human Health Pt 12.808 0.859 0.481 11.107 50.682

Ecosystem Quality Pt 6.111 0.627 0.179 7.742 782.522

Resources Pt 10.982 0.809 4.663 31.915 79.454

Title: Percentage of different comparing Malaysian version to European version

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.05 / Europe EI 99 H/H vs Eco-indicator 99 (MAL) (H) V1.00 / Europe EI 99 H/H

Damage category Unit Input Output Diesel Input-mill Output-mill

Total Pt 18.68% 25.30% -28.23% -9.88% 244.13%

Human Health Pt 69.28% 69.28% 69.28% 69.28% 69.28%

Ecosystem Quality Pt 585.38% 585.38% 585.38% 585.38% 585.38%

Resources Pt -34.39% -34.39% -34.39% -34.39% -34.39%

Discussion

1. Comparison among both results showed that the formulatedMalaysian values have higher results for most categories in termof points compared to default values. Damage on Eco-system arerated tremendously higher compared to default values, whereothers categories have small differences.

2. This is due to the fact that Malaysian indicator values are

normalized against much higher normalization value for

Human Health and Ecosystem Quality and lower value for

Resource Use.

Conclusion and Recommendation

This database will be useful in life cycle assessment studies conducted in the countryas then it would be more meaningful and representative of Malaysia scenario. Thisproject is the foundation support for the National Ecolabeling Programme which aimto fulfils the foreign legislation requirements that demand evidence on the controlmeasures taken to reduce environmental impact of products or services throughouttheir life cycle.

However, formulation of the inventory database alone will not be enough to

provide a comprehensive life cycle assessment study in assessing Malaysian

scenario. This is because the component of Life Cycle Impact Assessment

(LCIA) also play an important role in Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology

into identifying accurate and representative products impacts.

Conclusion and recommendation In this research, the Malaysian normalization and weighting values of Life Cycle ImpactAssessment (LCIA) were formulated using the Eco-indicator methodology in SimaPro 7.The formulated values best represents Malaysia’s environmental scenario by takinginto consideration of Malaysian environmental data.

Hence, LCA conducted will be more accurate, representative and meaningful inevaluating Malaysian environmental impacts.

This research is a milestone project towards the formulation of Life Cycle ImpactAssessment (LCIA) for Malaysia. This study could be recommended into the NationalLife Cycle Assessment (LCA) project, to enhance the formulation of National Life CycleInventory database.

Thank You for Your Kind Attention