Environmental Impact of Palm Cooking Oil: A Case Study in Sumatra, Indonesia

Over the past decade, there has been a notable increase in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on oil palm production worldwide, with a primary focus on the life cycle stages from oil palm plantation to Crude Palm Oil (CPO) production. However, a research gap remains in the downstream segment, from CPO to cooking oil production. This study addresses the gap by utilizing LCA to evaluate the environmental impacts using recent field data collected from selected sites in Sumatra. The study seeks to assess the environmental impacts based on the quality of palm cooking oil, and to compare these impacts with those of other vegetable cooking oils. The system boundary is defined as cradle to gate, comprising land preparation, plantation, CPO production and refinery of cooking oil. The results indicate that higher-quality palm cooking oil is associated with increased environmental impacts across several categories, including global warming, eutrophication, acidification, ozone layer depletion and marine ecotoxicity. Moreover, palm cooking oil with iodine value (IV) 56 which represents the quality level commonly consumed exhibits a lower carbon footprint compared to cooking oils derived from rapeseed, sunflower, soybean, peanut, canola, coconut and maize. These findings offer valuable insights for consumers, industries and policymakers to mitigate the environmental impact of vegetable cooking oil.