Greenhouse gas footprints of palm oil production in Indonesia over space and time

Wan Yee Lam; Michal Kulak; Sarah Sim; Henry King; Mark A J Huijbregts; Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.377

Greenhouse gas footprints of palm oil production in Indonesia over space and time

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Oct 20:688:827-837. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.377. Epub 2019 Jun 24.

Authors

Wan Yee Lam¹, Michal Kulak², Sarah Sim², Henry King², Mark A J Huijbregts³, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University, 6500 GL Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Electronic address: lamwanyee@science.ru.nl.
² Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, Unilever R&D, Colworth Science Park, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, UK.
³ Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University, 6500 GL Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
⁴ Natural Capital Project, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

PMID: 31255821
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.377

Abstract

Palm oil, the most widely used vegetable oil, is one of the largest drivers of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global land use and land cover change. Here, we provide fine-resolution (100 m × 100 m) estimates of GHG footprints of current (2015) and potential future scenarios (2030) of crude palm oil (CPO) production in Indonesia. The current estimated average GHG footprint excluding production on Java is 5.7 t CO₂ eq t^-1 CPO; ranging from 0.7 t CO₂ eq t^-1 CPO in Hulu Sungai Tengah, Kalimantan to 26.0 t CO₂ eq t^-1 CPO in Pontianak, Kalimantan, and these vast differences are only discernible at fine spatial scales. The future GHG footprint of Indonesian CPO could be reduced by 42% without compromising increased output by limiting expansion to non-forest and non-peat land. Our fine-scale analysis provides a spatial screening approach to inform new oil palm concessions and sourcing decisions, before more cost-intensive patch analysis and carbon stock assessments are conducted.

Keywords: Climate change; Land use planning; Palm oil production; Sustainable sourcing.