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Sustainability
"Use and Limitations - Life Cycle Assessment of oils and fats"
September 20, 2011
This session, chaired by Rudy Rabbinge en Karlijn van Lierop, especially considered the life cycle assessment of oils and fats.
The first speaker was Puvan Selvanathan from Sime Darby Berhard (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Because of increasing activities in relation to carbon footprint assessments of oils and fats, this presentation gave insight in the current developments of Sime Darby regarding Carbon Foot Printing, carbon labelling (in retail) and life cycle analysis of its palm oil products. Sime Darby, one of the larger palm oil production companies in the world, showed to be committed to implement sustainable ways of production for the whole company. As well as for the current plantations as for development of new plantations. Puvan indicated that the plans for development of new plantations in Liberia over up to three decades will be based on an independent ecology and social assessment. These developments will be based on RSPO principles and criteria with the intention to get it right the first time. The work of life cycle analyses has led to the conclusion that operations are already quite optimal, and investments for improvement should cover the whole supply chain. Sime Darby is one of the 13 members of the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) working group active in voluntary actions to reduce GHG emissions. Within the working group discussions run to which extent GHG indicators should be incorporated in the RSPO Principles & Criteria. Common understanding is that the RSPO should not become a GHG police. One of the Sime Darby activities involves improving performance of smallholders. One of the goals is to increase their yield at least 5 times.
Click here to download the presentation.
Then Matthias Finkbeiner of the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, gave his presentation entitled 'Perspectives on Life Cycle Assessment in Food Chains.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the commonly accepted tool to measure the environmental performance of products. Currently, many "new" methods are built on LCA principles like the carbon footprint or the water footprint. These methods have gained significant relevance in the food industry due to political developments like the European Food Sustainable Consumption and Production Round Table or private initiatives like The Sustainability Consortium in the US. The presentation of Matthias Finkbeiner gave an overview on methods and initiatives in the context of LCA and food.
Calculating an LCA for a certain product requires developing a framework describing all environmental, economic and social dimensions which are covered by the calculation and, moreover, which are not. LCAs based on different frameworks will lead to results that are not comparable, which will lead to misleading claims. To understand this Finkbeiner advised to at least take part in performing an LCA study to get a feeling of the complexity of the choices to be made during the process. According to Finkbeiner it is up to the industry to act proactive in performing LCAs at least to gain insight in the effect of their product and possibilities to reduce the negative effects. Furthermore it is good to be aware of the trade-off between CO2 and water. Reducing the effects of one aspect might affect the other compartment.
Performing the LCA study is one thing, communication is another. Although it might be possible to calculate one figure, it might be more difficult to use such a figure in communication with customers or the general public. Especially in the food industry which is based on crops that depend on weather and local conditions to grow, the outcome of the calculation depends on the specific input which might vary widely over time and origin. Better than to comparing products might be to show the share of the impact of the product in relation to the total emission of the industry as a whole.
The last presentation by Caroline Sikking, Cargill Refined Oils Europe, Schiedam, was about 'The Impact of Carbon Footprint on Innovation in Oils and Fats Solutions'.
Environmental concerns and carbon focus in the food industry have led to an increased number of carbon footprint calculations. Carbon footprint as such is an important indicator in the debate about sustainable development of the chain. The value of the complex and sometimes costly exercise will be in the debate; the process behind and in the opportunities for collaboration to find new ways to reduce the overall environmental impact. Cargill has global objectives in place to reduce its environmental impact and has set performance goals to improve energy efficiency and renewable energy use, and reduce water use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Cargill Refined Oils Europe has shared operational and supply chain expertise of the vegetable oils supply chain to help document carbon footprints. Cargill will share some of the key insights and lessons learned to contribute to the debate. Since carbon = energy Cargill can support its customers by calculating the impact of the product and with the extended insight help to reduce the energy component. Turning carbon into money will build the business case.
Sikking elaborated on a joined project with Walkers, producer of crisps, in which all links in the supply chain cooperated to calculate the impact throughout the total supply chain. This led to the insight to which extent each part of the supply chain contributes to the total impact.
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